


stairing contests.

by sherlockianfangirl



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: !!!!!!, !!!!!!!, Avengers - Freeform, F/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn AF, college student!reader, enjoy!!!!, eventual smut probably, i use a lot of exclamation points, it makes sense once you actually read the fic, loki and reader are meant to be, loki deserves to be happy !!!!!, lol reader likes 2 swear, reader is really dumb, reader likes 2 bake i describe baking a lot, slow burn !!!!!, so is Loki, the title is not a typo, this fic is super self indulgent lol, this isn't a super poignant or beautiful fic its just my late-night ramblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:49:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23188780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherlockianfangirl/pseuds/sherlockianfangirl
Summary: A new neighbor is not a big deal.Having Loki Laufeyson as your new neighbor is a disastrously big deal.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Comments: 66
Kudos: 208





	1. meet and greet

Loki Laufeyson is your new neighbor.

You come to learn of this knowledge when you’re coming home from class. Backpack heavy on your shoulders, you trudge up the stairs to your floor, wanting nothing more than to just _collapse_ on your sofa and take a three-hour nap.

You exit the stairwell at your floor, fishing your house key from your backpack. Your apartment sits at the end of the hallway, and when you’re outside _your_ door the door from the apartment _across_ from you swings open, hinges squeaking.

A man barrels straight into you and the key slips from your hand. You stumble, nearly falling over.

The man's hands clamp on your arms at the last second, pulling you upright. You can feel his palms tense through the fabric of your sweatshirt.

“I am so sorry!” His voice echoes through the hallway. “Are you alright?”

You pick your key up off of the floor and are ready to respond, but then you look at the man and it’s no ordinary person, it’s Thor _fucking_ Odinson.

Did _Thor_ seriously just run into you?

You gape for a second before remembering his question. “Oh! Um, yeah, I am.”

He breaks into a grin, all yellow and sunshine. “Good, I am glad! I was helping my brother move into his new, ah, _dwelling,_ you see, and I was just about to leave but I was careless when I opened the door and collided straight into you!”

Brother?

You remember a scene from 2012, way before you lived in New York. Your mom crying fat tears as she watched the news, the death count number on the bottom of the TV screen going higher and higher.

Oh God, there’s no fucking way…

“Loki?” you blurt out.

You hope that Thor will say no, my _other_ brother, and then he’ll say some random Norse name that you’ve never heard of and you will have to deal with a new neighbor that is over-polite and speaks in iambic pentameter. But at least he won’t be a fucking _mass murderer._

Thor’s grin dampens as he sees your apprehension. “Yes,” he says, “Loki.”

You’re not sure how to respond to Thor, or what kind of response it even _warrants,_ so you just stare dumbly at him and his ridiculous muscles and disappointed eyes. 

To be fair, the news has been saying that Loki nearly sacrificed his _life_ to stop Thanos, that he’s not as bad of a man anymore, that everyone, even gods that tried to enslave an entire planet, deserves a second chance. And maybe he won’t be a bad man anymore, and could even be a good one.

But he’s still a killer!

He’s still a killer.

You never reply to Thor. You take your key and jam it into the keyhole; when the door unlocks you practically run inside and lock the door behind you. 

Thor stands alone in the hallway, feeling so very dismayed.

***

The next morning, when you’re rushing down the stairs on your way to class, you meet Loki.

You’re down one flight and on the second, when suddenly the door to the stairwell swings open and a tall man with greasy hair comes with your sight. Within a split second you’ve recognized him and you freeze on the steps, muscles seemingly paralyzed.

Goddamn it, you’re not even scared! Just so creeped out, so disconcerted by the fact that a Norse murderer god whose brother is an _Avenger_ is your neighbor, and now he’s going to pass by you and you’re going to have to exchange pleasantries with him like he’s just an ordinary guy.

Loki starts towards the stairs, but then he catches sight of your unabashed staring.

His lips curl into a sneer, and even though he’s wearing loose workout clothes and no weird leather ensemble, he looks _evil._

“Hi,” you blurt out, and then resist the urge to kick yourself.

A sharp crease forms between Loki’s eyebrows. 

“Are you going to keep on staring?” He asks, and one of his fists clenches in agitation.

“No, sorry!” You say, suddenly flustered.

Why the hell are you feeling flustered? _He_ should be flustered, and you steel your nerves against him, but when you look at the greasy man again you can feel your hands shaking.

You tear your eyes away and train them on the door at the bottom of your stairs, your exit, and make your way down.

Loki makes his way up.

When he passes you in the steps, he hesitates for a second. You stall too, wondering if he’s going to say _SIKE!,_ and will suddenly smile and turn cordial and shake your hand and apologize profusely for ruining your 2012. 

“Be careful, girl,” he says, voice low enough to be a rasp.

You nearly trip on the stairs and he laughs.

***  
Loki doesn’t know why he did it.

Well, yes he does. He found you _funny,_ this wild mortal girl. Staring shamelessly at him one second, overcome with embarrassment in the next.

He didn’t even mean his little warning, he was just trying to be funny back! He’s going to be stuck on Midgard for an eternity, he’s going to be _tormented_ for an eternity! The least he can do is have fun with these little mortals and their oh-so-pliable emotions.

He sees you again the next morning when he’s returning from his workout. You walk down the stairs quickly, looking at him but trying to make it look like you’re _not_ looking at him. 

Instead of starting up the stairs, he watches you, amused.

You tuck your hair behind your ear and tilt your head just _so;_ your eyes drink him in like you’ve never seen anyone like him before.

Loki fights the urge to bare his teeth at you, like an animal.

***

Fuck it, you’re making muffins.

It’s been two weeks since Loki moved in, and you swear that each day you see him is another step toward you going insane.

Whenever you’re on your way to class he’s always there, leaning against the wall like he was waiting for you. He always smiles at you in this depraved sort of way, like he’s watched other people smile but is trying it out for himself for the first time.

And one time, you might’ve still been half-asleep so you’re not entirely sure, one time he might've even bared his _teeth_ at you.

Instead of just doing something simple, like leaving fifteen minutes earlier, you opt for the alternate route. The idiot route.

You haven’t properly met your neighbor yet, and what better way to do it than to introduce yourself and deliver some freshly baked goods? And in the process, what if you happened to cuss him out? Call him out for his fucking _awful_ staring problem? 

It’s Friday, and instead of going out with your friend Saima after class, or even just going home and taking a nap, you go shopping.

You buy raspberries and all-purpose flour and cute little rainbow-themed muffin liners.

At home, you get to work. You furiously chop raspberries, mix the ingredients into batter. You place the muffin liners in the pan, omitting all of the green ones, and pour in the batter. You shove the pan _aggressively_ into the oven.

While it bakes, you freshen up your appearance. Wipe flour from your cheek and swap your glasses for contact lenses. Spritz on a little bit of perfume. Not for Loki, obviously. For yourself, because if you truly want to be confident, you better _look_ confident. 

The oven dings, and when the muffins have cooled off, you place six of the best, most pristine muffins, the ones with sticky raspberry chunks peeking out of a perfectly-browned top crust, in a container and head over to your neighbor’s place.

You knock on the door twice, cradling your Tupperware in your arms. 

Silence, and then footsteps. The door unlocks and standing in the doorway, in all of his greasy-haired glory, is Loki Laufeyson. His eyes widen in surprise when he sees you, and before he can plaster on another one of his smiles, you start talking.

“Hi!” You chirp, “I’m (Y/n).”

The crease forms between his eyebrows again and all of your previous bravado shrivels up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello my lovely readers!! thank you for checking out my fic :) now, i understand that a lot of loki writers explore/establish a power dynamic between loki and the reader, and i absolutely LOVE those fics, but i can't take myself seriously enough to write something like that!! loki and the wonderful reader are EQUALS: they r both stupid as hell and subject to my stupid as hell writing! this fic is going to be dumb and fun and probably not make any sense at most parts but it is going to be a PLEASURE to write !!! chapter 2 coming soon!!! feel free to leave kudos and comments, your support and feedback means the world to me!!!


	2. disastrous muffins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you and loki are off to a rough start

Loki opens his door and there you stand. The funny mortal girl with the staring problem.

What in the Nine are you doing here? There’s no doubt that you know who he is, that you’ve recognized him and registered him in your mind as something evil. Have you come to taunt him, spit on him? He doesn’t want to hurt a woman today, he hopes you just say something wretched instead of trying anything physically.

“Hi,” you say, while his thoughts careen around in a panicked frenzy, “I’m (Y/n).”

(Y/n).

Have you really just come here to introduce yourself? There’s not much he can say as a response to that, you already know  _ his  _ name, and saying something like  _ nice to meet you, (Y/n), _ is pretty off-kilter for his character.

Loki glares at you, the action comes naturally, and he watches you flinch.

Silence grows between you and him, two, three, four, five, seven seconds long.The tension stretches thinner and thinner.

You stare at him. You frown, you shift your weight from foot to foot. You look scared.

Good!

There’s a special type of satisfaction that comes with scaring someone like you, someone so vulnerable and fresh-faced and female.

But then you snap out of it and flash him a smile like it’s a whole  _ event, _ like time is bending every which way to accommodate your happiness. It’s very very pink and he can see your gums and your teeth, and the corners of your eyes crinkle and it’s absolutely deplorable.

His turn to flinch.

“I’m your neighbor,” you say, and gesture to the door across from his own and Loki’s heart drops to his _ toes, _ “and I just wanted to introduce myself! Also, I baked you some muffins, as, like, a welcome gift.”

You hold out a cloudy container that he hadn’t previously noticed. There’s a faint outline of something in it, the muffins? Loki doesn’t know what muffins are, but his focus snags on the word  _ gift.  _

“You came here to give me a gift.”

Your smile fades a little bit, maybe you were expecting more enthusiasm from his part, but you stay put with the container.

“I did,” you say, and then add, “it’s a thing that neighbors do here. On Earth.”

Fire rushes up his cheeks, Norns, your words have him turning  _ pink! _ They strip him straight down, peeling off his confidence and coolness and his unwavering belief that he was the smart one, the cheeky and cunning one.

__ You just assumed, just  _ insinuated  _ his ignorance, and you’re right. He doesn’t know how things work here or how you treat your neighbor or proper gift-giving etiquette. 

You could be illiterate, stupid, deranged, and you’d still be better than him on this damned realm. Because you’re mortal, you’re human. It doesn’t matter how thickly he lays on his accent or how defined the muscles in his shoulders are or how many mind games he tries to play.

You’re not a murderer ex-prince that has to go to therapy twice a week and cries into his pillow at night and is constantly under invasive surveillance, courtesy of Tony Stark. 

“I don’t want your gift,” Loki spits.

You stare at him, unimpressed, like you were expecting his bite. “They’re homemade,”’ you say.

Is that supposed to add some sort of sentiment to it? Like something made in her  _ home _ has made its value so much more?

“ I don’t  _ want _ it,” he repeats.

Now you react. Your brow furrows a bit, lines creasing your skin.  _ Take a step back,  _ Loki thinks, go away go back home stop bothering me stupid mortal wild girl go away. Leave him alone, please. And then let him over-analyze this entire encounter for the entire night and then  _ not _ mention it even once to his therapist.

In your arms, the container trembles. Shaky hands. You open your mouth, please please close it, Loki doesn’t want to hear your voice ring out again, confident and self-assured and distinguished. 

You don’t close your mouth.

“Why are you being  _ rude?” _

Your words are barbed but don’t go so far; your voice is rising in pitch, you’re getting riled up! _ Already?  _ Loki has barely said anything, he hasn’t even deployed his falsely honeyed words or twisty lies or  _ anything _ yet.

Maybe his miseries aren’t worth your presence.

Something stirs in his stomach, pure excitement. A performance is about to happen here, right in this dilapidated apartment! A spectacle.

He starts. “I’m not being rude. What’s rude,  _ dear,” _ he drops the nickname and you wince, perfect, “is your staring problem. I just don’t want your little,” he gestures to your container with a lazy flick of his fingers,  _ “gift.” _

(He’s never said the word muffin aloud before and he’s afraid of mispronouncing it).

His comment strikes a nerve in you, but not the one he wants. You don’t crumple or apologize or throw yourself at his feet and kiss the tops of his sock-covered toes. Instead, your brow furrows further. 

“I have a staring problem?” You ask, like it’s the most preposterous idea in the world. “You stare at me on the stairs, like, all the fucking time!”   
The Avengers love to use profanity at even the slightest of discomforts. You must be the same way.

“And how do you know that? Because, _ darling,  _ you’re always looking at me. Into my eyes, like a lovestruck  _ girl.” _

The use of another nickname makes you shudder. Loki laughs. 

“Just take the muffins, you asshat.”

“Asshat?”

You sigh, looking at him like he’s stupid. “Do they not use words like that on Asgard? Am I supposed to call you, like, a bastard or a scoundrel or a knave or something?”

Goodness, you are so funny! 

“Scoundrel is a good word, how  _ smart  _ of you. You can just call me Loki, though.”

You shove the container at him. Instinctively, his fingers curl around it, and you let go and back up. Turning on your heel, you leave him standing in his doorway.

This could be an epic, climactic moment. The heroine strides away and he can’t keep his eyes off of her. But your door is three feet away from his own, so your stride is more of an awkward walk. You forget where you put your key and grumble curses under your breath as you pat your pockets.

Loki had judged himself right, he does spend the entire night thinking about his encounter with you. About this whirlwind hodgepodge mess that you sent his emotions. About your muffins. He had tried one, and it was absolutely  _ delicious, _ sweet crumbly bread with berries baked into it. He had scarfed the entire thing down, and had then eaten another one.

How was he able to feel so high and low and laugh and want to slam his door in your face all at once?

***

Morning comes and you’re gleeful as you hop down the stairwell. 

Loki stands in his usual workout clothes and scowl. You smile at him sweetly.

“Good morning, Loki!” You call. Your backpack doesn’t feel as heavy as it usually does.

Loki catches sight of you and slides off the wall.

He can’t really try to murder you or anything, can he? His brother is a fucking  _ Avenger. _

“Good morning,” he says, eyes lilting, and then he hesitates. 

This fucker really forgot your name. 

Then he says it. 

“(Y/n).”

You don’t know why you shiver when he says it. But he notices, you think, and his creepy smile is back. 

You say good morning to Loki every day of the week. It’s a more stressful encounter than anything else going on in your life, even  _ college, _ but you do it anyway. 

***

Saima lies on the sofa, hands pressed over her eyes.

She came over earlier, ate one of the leftover muffins, and then proceeded to vent her heart out. Stress, school, boys. She loves to talk, which is something you have in common.

Right now, there’s a lull in the conversation, and you know it’s your turn to vent. Racking your brain, you think of what to say. You’re stressed, because of Loki. You see Loki everyday when you go to school. And, well, Loki is a boy.

No, he’s a man. A god.

Would Saima freak out if you told her about everything, the smiles and staring and muffins? 

It’s been laying so heavy on your mind, if you don’t tell someone you feel like you might explode.

“I have a new neighbor,” you start.

Saima uncovers her eyes. “Is he cute?”

You glare at her.“How do you know it’s a guy?”

She sighs. “(Y/n), why would you bring this up right after I got done talking about guys? A new neighbor is not a big deal.”

“He’s not cute,” you say. “His hair is greasy. And he smiles weird.”

“Aw, you noticed his smile.”

“Because it’s  _ weird!  _ And he’s always fucking staring at me. But that’s not even the worst part.”

“What’s the worst part?”

You hesitate. Saima’s lived here her whole life. She was at school when the New York attack happened. She told you once, when she was drunk, about how it was the day she thought she would die. She had almost moved away because of it, and the only reason she stayed back was to be close to her parents.

“I’m waiting.”

“Okay,” you say, unsure, “do you remember how the news was saying that the New York terrorist guy-”

“His name is Loki.”

“-okay,  _ Loki, _ isn’t so bad anymore?”

Saima scoffs. “Isn’t so bad?  _ Loki _ killed thousands of people. He’s a fucking monster.”

Fuck fuck fuck why did you decide to talk about this?

“Well, uh, he’s my neighbor.”

Saima sits up right away. Her eyes are wild. “You can’t joke about this stuff, (Y/n)!” she says. “That’s not funny. Why would you even  _ say  _ that?”

You’re not joking!

“I’m not joking!”

There’s a knock on the door. Thank  _ God, _ a distraction. You stand up and go to get it, Saima’s gaze burning holes into your back.

You forget to look through the peephole before opening the door.

Loki stands there, holding your empty tupperware container. 

“Fuck.”

Loki raises an eyebrow. “No need for the profanity, dear-”

“No  _ fucking _ way.”

Saima’s at your shoulder, how did she get there so fast? You and Loki turn to look at her. Her hands are shaking the way yours did when you first met him. She looks scared, and pissed.

“Hello,” Loki says to her in a voice that’s almost kind.

Of course,  _ today _ has to be the day that he chooses to be amicable.

Her face grows red. She opens her mouth to speak, but no words come out.

Loki grows unimpressed with her and turns back to you. His eyes blaze razor blue, challenging you. “I brought back your container,” he says, and then, because he’s a bitch, “thank you  _ so much _ for the gift.”

“Gift?” Saima nearly shrieks, making you jump. “Why would you give a  _ murderer _ a gift?”

Loki nearly drops the container. 

“It was just muffins,” you say, face growing hot. You feel stupid. Saima’s right, what the hell were you doing, trying to talk to fucking Loki of fucking Asgard? He could probably kill you right now, draw out the air from your lungs and turn you into an empty bag of flesh and bone with just a snap of his fingers.

But he hasn’t done it yet. And it’s been weeks.

“Muffins,” Saima says slowly. “The same muffins, the raspberry ones?”

You try to reply, try to defend yourself, but Loki cuts you off.

“They were quite delicious, weren’t they?” 

If he didn’t have superpowers, you would definitely bitchslap him.

Saima abruptly turns away and goes to grab her coat and bag from where it lies on the sofa. She storms back up to the door, and her cheeks are wet.

“Loki,” she says, jabbing a finger right at his chest, although her hands are still shaking, “I just, I want to let you know that you are a  _ monster. _ And I know you’re immortal, but every day until I  _ die _ I’ll wish for your death.” 

She turns to you. “I don’t know if I want to talk to you,” she says, eyes filling with tears.

Saima leaves. You and Loki watch her stomp down the hallway, her shoulders shaking. The door to the stairwell loudly slams shut after she yanks it open.

You’re frozen solid in your doorway, unable to comprehend everything that just happened. You might have lost a friend, the only friend you really have. Loki might get angry and snap your neck. 

“Will you please take your container?” Loki asks finally, voice strained.

He stands there, a completely different person. His eyes are kind of red and his posture slumps.   
Monster.

You take the container from him, and he goes back home.

You feel bad for him. Sweet hell, you know that you’re going to do something stupid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello lovely readers thanks for joining me for another chapter!! everyone needs a best friend so i invented saima because i want the reader to have a life!! if loki was her only friend and then became her love interest it would be kinda toxic, you know?? bc it's hard to have only one person in your corner, you deserve more than that. anyway uhh loki is emotionally unstable if u can't tell, just like i am under this quarantine :( thank you guys so much for all of the love on chapter 1, 28 kudos???!!! u guys r making my heart SWELL thank you all so so much!! feel free to leave comments and tell me what u thought of this chapter, it means so much to me!! have a great day and remember to wash your hands :)


	3. red dress and nice hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> could this be the beginning of a friendship?

It’s juvenile.

Your friend was _pathetic,_ red in the face and blubbering like he had actually _done_ something. 

Still, even though she was pathetic, her words had a bite. They sliced right through him and his razor-thin walls, which he normally builds up with iron and icy eyes and heavy resolve. He hadn’t felt the need to, though, not when he was approaching _you._ You’re not a threat.

He hadn’t been expecting you to have company. He also hadn’t been expecting the way you looked at him after the crying girl had left. You looked at him like everything bad that had ever happened had happened to him. Like the universe had wronged him and never said sorry.

It was horrible. Loki hates pity.

It didn’t feel terrible coming from you, though.

Still, your pity wasn’t enough to outweigh your friend’s words. Loki’s been living with them in his mind since last night. _Monster monster monster._ It’s been painted over his thoughts in every garish color there is.

It’s just that, well, he was being _different._ Thor would say he was being _better._ He had gone to return your container. He was going to be nice and not call you dear or darling or whatever else, and maybe he would even drop a conversation starter from the list his therapist had given him to help him acclimatize to Midgardian life. He was going to be _amicable._

Nobody wants to give him a _chance_ to be amicable. What good is all of the twisting and mottling of his personality if there’s no one there to receive it?

Why is he trying?

***

Saturday morning, the morning after the incident, Loki wakes up. You’re fresh in his mind and he _hates_ it. He showers and doesn't put gel in his hair. Instead of going on a run, he puts on his unflattering Midgardian clothes and goes on a walk.

The streets are already busy. Of course, they’re never _not_ busy. The air smells like smoke and grease. Taxis honk. Tires screech. The people he walks past speak English with a special type of twang in their accent, or they don’t speak English at all. 

He walks a few blocks, letting his mind become nothing, completely blank. By the time he gets back to the apartment complex, he’s managed to achieve a state of mind that’s halfway calm.Halfway. You aren’t the epicenter of his thoughts.

In the apartment, he wavers.

He shouldn’t take the stairs. 

He should take the elevator instead.

Loki gets all the way there, fingers hovering over the button. He’s been standing like that for a while, at least a minute. He can see the blurry outline of himself in the steel doors. The walls surrounding him are beige and sad. There’s a little sign with a diagram tacked over the button panel, labeled in all capitals with _IN CASE OF FIRE DO NOT USE ELEVATOR USE STAIRWAYS._

There’s no fire. But if there was? 

Orange-red-yellow flames licking him up, not the cool green ones that he can conjure in his palms. Heat searing his skin. Scorching him inside-out, not obeying his every whim and dancing over his fingertips.

Gods, he can’t do it. Who’s pathetic now?

He leaves the elevator doors and heads to the stairwell.

When he pushes open the door to the stairs, he’s _storming,_ mad at himself and the elevator and its dopey little sign.

He’s not paying attention. Loki collides straight into someone.

“Ouch, _fuck!”_

You.

You stumble and lose your balance. Right before you hit the ground, Loki reaches out, on instinct, and grabs your arms. He pulls you way too hard.

You end up pressed right against his chest. He can hear your heartbeat, or maybe it’s his own. The smell of your perfume pervades his nose, orange blossoms. He’s _way_ too close to you.

Loki releases your arms and steps back. His palms itch.

You stare at him, but it’s more out of surprise than hate.

This is where he says sorry.

“Sorry.”

The word is unfamiliar on his tongue, but Loki says it anyway.

“I’m having major deja vu right now,” you reply, and he’s confused. “The same thing happened in the hallway with Thor.”

Thor?

“You met Thor?” He asks.

“It was on the day you moved in,” you explain, and fidget with the hem of your dress. _Dress._ Over all of these weeks, Loki’s never seen you in a dress. “I was just heading home and he bumped into me and caught me right before I fell. Just like you did” You huff out a little laugh.

The idea that you met Thor is just, well, impossible. He’s never thought about you and his brother in the same moment. In his mind, the two of you don’t even belong on the same plane of existence. You’re _you,_ mortal girl who’s just his neighbor. And Thor is _Thor._ Thunder and muscles and polished armor.

He’s also had maybe two conversations with you, so it makes sense, but still. _You_ met _Thor. Norns_ , you must have drooled over him and come up with some excuse to run a hand over his biceps.

“He was really nice,” you add.

“Oh,” is all Loki can think to say.

You noticed his _niceness._

“Okay, um, are you free right now? I want to talk to you.“

He’s still surprised with your reaction to Thor, and also, on a much lesser (much _larger)_ scale, he likes your dress. It’s hot red, not the _best_ color, but there’s little white flowers embroidered along the neckline, and it stops a few inches above your knees. You have a lot of leg showing, huge swaths of skin. You would cause a _scandal_ on Asgard, but here in this poorly-lit stairwell, you look slightly pretty.

“I am,” he says, which is actually the truth. Your dress is making him reluctant to lie.

Your face lights up. He’s seen you like this once, at the beginning of the week, when you greeted him and he had forgotten your name.

“Great!” You say, sounding unlike the girl at the door last night or the girl with the muffins or just yourself in general. “There’s a coffee place right around the corner, do you wanna go with me?”

No no no.

Of course, now he’s going to make a comeback with his namesake. God of _Lies._ He does not want to go with you, it’s too much. Again, you’re _you._ But he says yes, and you smile and move to hold open the door to the stairwell for him, and your dress swishes with the movement.

***

Loki looks nice.

Like, really nice.

He didn’t slick back his hair today. He wears it loose, and it falls to his shoulders and frames his face in soft waves, inky black contrasting with his alabaster skin. He’s wearing a long-sleeve shirt and slim-fit trousers that stop at his ankles, very European-esque. He looks softer than usual, if you ignore the purple under his eyes.

The two of you sit in the coffee shop, a hipster place where the light bulbs hang nakedly from wires and the baristas all have cool haircuts. Loki must’ve cast a spell on himself, because nobody recognizes him. You cradle a mug of chai in your hands, while he stares at his plain black coffee.

Only psychopaths drink their coffee black, so it makes perfect sense.

You haven’t talked about anything important yet. Just regular chatter, about how you’re a college student and you’re majoring in finance and about how you’ve never actually been here before. The kind of things you say to a neighbor.

You don’t bring up Saima, or how you called her _seven_ times and sent so many texts, and how she ignored all of them. Or how you spent all night fighting with yourself, because Saima was completely right and her anger at Loki was completely justified, but on the other hand, you felt _bad_ for him. 

He had come to return your muffin container, for fuck’s sake. He wasn’t going to _kill_ you.

But again, he’s killed other people. 

But it’s _him_ that makes you scared, his eyes and smile, not his history.

 _God,_ this is tough.

Being indecisive makes you do stupid, desperate, things, like getting coffee with a murderer.

You should just get it over with.

“So,” you start out, and Loki stares right at you. You try to do that trick where you stare at the space between his eyebrows instead of at his eyes, but it’s not any less nerve-wracking.

“So,” he echoes.

What do you even want to tell him? _Sorry that my friend hates you, I’m not mad at her for hating you, though, but_ I _don’t hate you, mainly because you haven’t killed me yet?_

“I’m probably crazy,” you say, “and like, I don’t know _why_ I think this, but I feel like you might be a decent person.”

 _‘’Really?”_ He asks, eyebrows raising high on his forehead. You watch him fumble, trying to regain his composure. “You’re completely wrong, mortal. I’m _dangerous.”_

“I know that! It’s just that, you’re, uh,” you can’t find the words, “fuck. I don’t know. You don’t seem like you’re going to be killing anybody anytime soon.”

Loki smiles.

He’s confident again. The coffee shop is warm, but you feel chills on the back of your neck. “Is that what you’re worried about, dear? That I will snap your neck or drive a knife through your heart? That I’ll _kill_ you?”

He is so fucking _dense,_ good Lord.

“No! I literally just said that I’m _not_ worried about that.”

Now he seems even more amused. He leans back in his chair, smirking. “You should be.”

You glare at him. “Okay, but I’m not.”

“Your friend is.”

It all comes crashing down. He’s still upset over Saima’s words.

“I know,” you say softly, because now you can tell that his amusement is fake. God of Lies, your ass. He’s bad at his job. “But she has reason to be. She was _there.”_

 _  
_ “I don’t feel comfortable discussing that.” He’s gone cold again. It’s like there’s a light switch in his brain between his two emotions, cocky and mean, and someone is in there constantly flipping the switch. “With _you.”_

“Okay,” you say. “Don’t discuss it with me. But I just want to say that, uh, I wasn’t there. I’m just here with who you are _now,_ and you’re rude and kind of bitchy, but, like, you’re okay. As a person. Like, you said thanks for the muffins. And you always say good morning to me. So you’re not really that evil or scary or whatever you think of yourself in your head. Not anymore. And if my friend had seen you the way I’ve seen you then maybe she wouldn’t be as scared.”

Loki stares at you.

He’s silent.

You said _way_ too much.

You tear your eyes away from him and stare at your chai. You should just call your mom and move. Get an apartment in a nicer part of the city, where your neighbor is a regular person from Earth that doesn’t parade around in your thoughts all the time.

“Thank you,” Loki says, and he sounds kind.

Kind.

You look back up at him and he’s _different._ It’s unusually sunny today, and you’re sitting by a window, and the light filtering in from the windows of the coffee shop is giving his skin a golden glow. He looks nervous, uncertain, and he reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear, an ordinary movement that somehow leaves you feeling gutted.

It’s a horrible feeling. You rack your brain, trying to find a way to shift the conversation.

Loki does it for you. “I like your dress,” he says. The flip has switched, he’s cocky again.

Despite yourself, you blush. You feel like you’re fifteen. “Thanks,” you say, “I like your hair.”

It’s a lame compliment, but Loki blushes too. It’s funny. 

To your surprise, he starts talking. He launches into a story about something he did when he lived in Asgard, about how he refused to cut his hair for _months_ and his mother, _Frigga,_ he says reverently, eventually cut it in his sleep because it had gotten so long and looked improper for a prince like him.

Loki’s a great storyteller. He never stumbles over his words or branches off into twenty other stories the way you would. You listen, captivated. You’re having fun, you realize. You’re actually _enjoying_ his company.

***

Eventually, you and Loki leave the coffee shop and head back home. The two of you trudge up the stairs, and you make a dumb joke that you’ve probably made a thousand times, and he throws his head back and laughs. It echoes through the stairwell. 

It’s different from all of the other times that he’s laughed at you. Something has changed between you two.

You don’t want to know what it is.

At your door, Loki lingers, and you can tell that he’s enjoying himself.

“Do you have a phone?” You blurt out, because fuck it, you don’t want this to be a one-time thing.

“Yes,” he says, and fishes it out of his pocket. 

“Okay,” you say, and try to give him your number, not like _that,_ but in a friendly way. Because there’s great friend potential with Loki, which is something you would have never imagined last week, but you now know that he’s nice-ish and tells good stories and anyways, you need more friends.

Loki had no idea how a phone works.

You watch this great _God_ furiously tap at his screen, his brow furrowing. He swipes through the slides of apps and opens and closes the wrong app again and again.

“Give it here,” you sigh, and take it from him.

You open the texting app and send a text to yourself, a quick little **_Hi (y/n) this is Loki’s number BTW I think ur amazing!!!_ **

“Aw, how sweet,” you say, and hand back his phone back to him as your own buzzes in your pocket. Yes, your dress has pockets!

Loki brings the phone too close to his face and squints as he reads the message. “(Y/n), please do not _flatter_ yourself like that,” he says, and then, “what does BTW mean?”

“By the way,” you say, and pull out your keys. “As in, I have to go. BTW this was a lot of fun.”

“Goodbye,” Loki says. “BTW, I agree.”

***

You have your opinion of Loki, and Tony Stark has his own.

There’s a little security camera camouflaged on the ceiling, so small that you can’t see it unless you’re looking for it. Tony had put it there before Loki moved, as a safety precaution. There’s more cameras just like it in the elevator, and by every exit.

He looks at the footage now, at Loki exchanging numbers with a girl in a red dress. He watches you smile and and Loki smiles at you too, and this is exactly why Tony installed these cameras! Loki’s a _predator,_ he’s preying on you!

_Please go home._

You do go home, _holy shit,_ you’re his neighbor!

Tony feels sick to his stomach. Poor girl.

He knew this would happen. Now he has to do something about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO! my lovely readers. i love you all so much. thank you for all of the support you've been giving me on this story :) i write all of these chapters at like 11pm at night when i'm half asleep while listening to the same 3 hozier songs on repeat which is why they make no sense. these chapters are basically a stream of my consciousness in the disguise of a character. if that makes sense. anyways i am so grateful that you guys are reading and liking this story feel free to leave kudos and comments (i read and reply to all of them!!)! remember to wash your hands have a good day!!


	4. tony, you are not scary.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tony stark hops skips jumps LEAPS to conclusions. you're doing pretty good, though.

Tony thinks about what he should do.

This is a very serious situation, but its resolution is simple. It doesn’t involve combat gear or fighting or a huge mission. It’s not an Avengers-level problem.

It is a Thor-level problem, though.

Honestly, Tony is a little hesitant to show the video to him. It was Thor’s idea to get Loki the apartment so he would have space away from the Avengers. He claimed that Loki was ready for it because he had been  _ recovering _ with his  _ therapy. _

No amount of therapy can fix how messed-up Loki is. At the base of everything, in his heart of hearts, he’s simply  _ evil. _ He lies and manipulates and kills and has never had a regret. But Thor doesn’t think that way. He could watch his brother  _ murder _ someone with his own two eyes and would still have nice things to say about him.

But what if that girl is really in danger? Tony can’t take the chance. Monday morning, when he comes back from his trip to Asgard, he pulls Thor into a conference room and plays the video. 

It’s on a bigger screen, so the footage is grainy and the colors are a little washed out. But the smiles exchanged are still clear. Thor watches in silence, arms crossed. Tony watches him frown and thinks y _ es, _ he sees it too!

“Stark,” Thor says, turning to face him, “why did you record my brother  _ talking _ to someone?”

“He’s not just talking!” Tony exclaims. “He’s  _ preying _ on her.”

Thor raises his eyebrows. “Loki would never mistreat a woman like that. Stark, are you feeling ill?”

Why can’t he see it?

“He mistreated women when he  _ killed _ them in 2012. Everyone knows that! So why would this girl be talking to him if she knows who he is? Loki’s doing something to her, to make her like him.”

“She must enjoy talking to him,” Thor says, but his voice is quieter. He’s having doubts.

Tony laughs. “You think that anyone would want to talk to him?  _ Willingly? _ ” He takes a deep breath. “The thing is, she’s his neighbor. If she does something that triggers him, she’s in serious danger.”

Thor’s face pales at the word neighbor. Finally, he’s understanding the severity of the situation.

“I have met her,” Thor says, and if he was drinking water Tony would  _ definitely _ do a spit-take, “Stark, I’m afraid you’re right.”

“I know I’m right,” Tony says. “You should go get Loki.”

He doesn’t pry about how Thor knows the girl. He figures that Loki will have his own web of lies to explain everything.

***

Loki knows that there is something seriously  _ disturbing  _ within his mind. Something with horns and talons that tears apart his rational thought and sends his emotions spiraling. Something that spurs him on to do things that make people call him crazy.

So no, he’s not entirely opposed to the idea of therapy. If he can calm his thoughts down, maybe he can turn himself into something normal, or at least someone his mother would have loved.

But when he gets there, sits across from his therapist, a middle-aged woman who wears fuzzy cardigans and always offers him tea, he goes mute. How can he strip his mind bare, tell his traumas and speak his truths to someone he doesn’t even _ know?  _ Besides, he’s sure that she tells everything they talk about to Thor and by extension the Avengers, so it’s not like he has the privilege of privacy.

He doesn’t deserve privacy. He doesn’t deserve to be a better person, to relieve his mind. He doesn’t deserve his therapist’s kindness or ear or anything.

He does what he usually does during his therapy sessions. He sprawls across the sofa, drapes a hand dramatically over his head, and talks about things like the traumas his father gave him or how he’s always felt inferior to Thor, things that his well-meaning therapist laps up and scribbles furious notes about on a yellow-papered notepad.

His therapist, her name is Mavis, tells him nice things, like how his father’s inadequacy isn’t his fault. And how he can feel better about himself if he believes in himself and doesn’t worry about other people. And then she likes to tell him other things, little tips about living on Midgard, like how he should use more  _ contractions  _ in his sentences when he speaks.

Insignificant things.

Loki does  _ not  _ talk about the significant things.

He doesn’t know if he ever will.

Monday morning, he has therapy. The office is tucked away in a secluded part of the tower, a part where the average employee doesn’t wander. Less of a chance of being spotted.

He talks his usual nonsense, Mavis draws her lips in a tight line and makes suggestions. Sometimes he fakes a tear, but he’s not in the mood for it today. 

Mavis asks if there’s anything new going on in his life. Loki thinks about you for a second, just a flash of you in his mind. 

“No,” he says. “Nothing new.”

Loki ambles out of the office after his session, clothes smelling faintly of chamomile. All in all, not a terrible experience.

He’s on his way out of the tower, waiting to take a back elevator because he’s not allowed on the main ones, when Thor shows up in the corridor.

Thor. 

“Loki,” Thor says, sounding unusually grim, “need to talk to you.”

“Thor! How was Asgard?” Loki keeps his voice light, even though he knows something is up. 

What has he done this time?

“Another time, brother. Come with me.”

***

Thor takes him through a series of hallways, hallways with people. Everyone stops and gawks at Thor, at him. Is this how you feel when he looks at you?

That doesn’t matter right now. Thor stops at the door to a conference room, where Tony Stark is waiting inside, looking  _ very  _ disturbed.

“So you’re preying on women now?” Tony says the second he’s inside.

_ What? _

“Stark, I have absolutely  _ no  _ idea what you’re talking about.”

“Really?” Tony looks unimpressed. Loki turns to Thor, hoping for an explanation, but Thor has the same look on his face.

“Yes!”

Tony doesn’t respond. He fiddles with a little remote, flicks off the lights. A video comes to life on the wall. It takes Loki’s eyes a few seconds to adjust, but then he sees the video clearly and oh  _ Gods, _ it’s you and him.

“Explain this,” Tony says, sounding borderline  _ grateful.  _ Figures. This man would probably slit his throat if it weren't for Thor.

“I am having a conversation with my neighbor,” Loki says flatly.

“Your  _ mortal  _ neighbor,” says Tony.

“Yes.”

“Your  _ female _ mortal neighbor.”

“Yes!”

What are they trying to make him do?

“She does not like you,” Thor says.

_ Thor _ says.

It’s a betrayal. 

“How do you know that?” he asks, fearing the answer much more than he should.

“I could tell when I met her. She was…  _ unexcited  _ at the prospect of you living next to her.”

Tony jumps in. “And why would she be talking to you and  _ smiling  _ if she doesn’t like you?”

“People can change!” Loki snaps.

He’s not lying.

Tony’s eyes widen and Thor frowns.

“Okay,” Tony says, raking a hand through his hair, _ “okay. _ But you’re still dangerous. You’re like a fucking faulty cannon or something. We don’t know when you’ll explode. Just stay away from her.”

“Please,” Thor adds.

So this is what they are trying to do. 

Do they really think that he’s going to hurt you?

You might be funny and mildly good-looking when you wear nice things, but you’re not worth the  _ mud  _ on the bottom of his shoe. He’s not going to go out of his way to cause you pain. He has better ways to waste his time.

Like using you to entertain himself. In his idle moments, he’ll look at you and talk to you and think about you all he wants! You’re  _ his _ neighbor. _ He’s _ the one that has your number in his phone. 

“You can’t tell me what to do, Stark.”

Wrong move.

Tony sets the remote down on the conference table. He stalks up to Loki, which looks  _ ridiculous,  _ because he’s a short man and he’s wearing his tacky eyeglasses, but there’s anger in his eyes. 

“Loki,” Tony says, voice prickly with malice, “I can. _I’m_ the one keeping you hidden here and paying for your therapy and your nasty hair product and everything else you use. You have to do whatever I say, because I’m basically paying for existence right now.”

If Loki was the type of person who cried in the middle of arguments, he would be crying right now. But no, he’ll probably do it later, in the solace and isolation of his own home.

Stark is right.

“I will stay away,” he says, and then leaves with an outright  _ theatrical _ exit.

He actually didn’t put any hair product in, for the second day in a row, for reasons he can’t describe. It works to his advantage, because his hair looks shiny and glossy and bobs with his movements. He hoists his chin high and purposely bumps into Thor on his way out. Thor stutters out a breath, like he’s ready to say something, but by then Loki’s too far down the hallway to hear it.

This entire situation is so ridiculous that he wants to laugh. Isn’t Tony Stark supposed to be intelligent? If so, then why is he leaping to such far conclusions?

Also, what would he do if Loki _ didn’t _ leave you alone?

The idea of finding out sends a dark thrill through him, the same one he had when he first saw his army to invade Midgard, the same one he had when he sat on Asgard’s throne. Yes, he’s bordering on that disturbing energy that usually  _ destroys  _ him more than it helps him, but he feels good.

He’s not going to leave you alone, definitely not now.

***

You find Saima in the on-campus library, hunched over a thick novel at a table in the back. She scribbles notes into a composition notebook while she reads, nonsense about symbolism and thematic structures that you’re  _ so _ glad you don’t have to deal with.

She knows you’re there when you take the seat across from her, but she doesn’t look up. You try to brush back the guilt, because you had such a  _ fun _ time with Loki on Saturday, when usually you spend your Saturdays with her.

“Saima,” you whisper, it’s a library so  _ no loud voices,  _ “just hear me out.”

She flips the page in her book. Jots down more notes.

But you know she’s listening.

“You have every right to be mad and hate Loki,” you say,  _ quietly, _ “and I’m not going to discount that. But his brother is an  _ Avenger. _ He can’t kill more people anymore. And you’re going to call me crazy, but he’s kind of nice. Or like, not really  _ nice,  _ but not as rude as you’re thinking.”

Saima puts down her pen. “I get that,” she says, also quietly, “but he can still hurt people without killing people, and even if he’s nice or whatever, it doesn’t account for the past. I don’t get why you’re trying to humanize him.”

Why are you trying to humanize him?

It was to feel less disconcerted from his staring, at first. To stop the way he made goosebumps race up your neck and your hands shake, because you  _ hate _ feeling that way.

But why are you doing it now?

“How can he ever do anything to account for his past if we don’t give him the chance?”

“Who are  _ you _ to give him the chance? 

She’s right. What right do  _ you _ have to forgive him for all of his past crimes?

“I….”

Saima goes further. “He could be a  _ predator.  _ How do you know he won’t take advantage of you?”

“Because I’m not fucking  _ stupid,  _ Saima!”

Your words come out strong and loud and full of  _ fire.  _ Someone sitting at a nearby table turns to stare. Saima’s face flushes red, but you don’t feel bad.

“Sorry,” Saima says, “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just scared for you, I guess.”

“You don’t have to be scared.”

She sighs. “I’m going to be, no matter what. But I  _ hate _ arguing with you, so I’ll just pretend that I’m not.”

“That works.”

“Can you just not talk about,” she hesitates and you know that she doesn’t want to use Loki’s name,  _ “him,  _ to me? I don’t want to think about it, or 2012,  _ ever again.” _

“Okay,” you say, even though Loki is  _ all _ you’ve been thinking about lately, and she’s the  _ only _ person you tell all of your thoughts to.

Saima smiles, though, and everything is okay.

You sit with her for a little bit longer, until you have to go to your equity management class. You sit near the front row in that class, happy enough with how your day is going that you don’t feel drowsy during the lecture. The professor assigns a paper, okay! You can do it! Right now, you can do anything.

On your way home, you stop to buy some groceries. Buttermilk and all-purpose flour. Vanilla extract and a little jar of multicolored sprinkles, star-shaped! Your essay can wait, because you’re in a crazy good mood and feel a  _ dire  _ need to bake a cake, in order to prolong this mood.

While waiting in line at the cashier, you idly wonder if Loki likes vanilla.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello wonderful readers, thanks for joining me for another chapter!! not too much loki and reader interaction in this one, but if it turns out the way i wrote it in my head, there is going to be a LOT of fluff in chapter 5. hopefully. also i just want to clarify that i fully support therapy!! i'm just making loki reluctant because i feel like that's what his character would do. go to therapy, luvs!! one of my best friends can finally smile again because they started going to therapy, please do what's best for your health! also 69 kudos, nice. but for real thank u guys for all of the support all of the sweet comments in the last chapter made me smile so hard skfjdslkfjds anyways feel free to leave kudos and tell me what u thought about this chapter!! ily all!!


	5. cake?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> um

You combine your dry ingredients, sugar and flour and baking powder. You combine your wet ingredients, crack your eggs with one hand. Toss the shells in the trash, except you have  _ horrible _ aim and one of the shells splatters on the ground and little white shards go everywhere. You clean it up with a napkin, squatting awkwardly on the floor, a labor of love.

You measure vanilla extract and dump it in the bowl. One cup of buttermilk. Unsalted butter. You mix it all together in your fancy Kitchenaid mixer, another gift from your mom. Add in the dry ingredients. The batter thickens; you continue to whisk, little puffs of flour rising up from the bowl when you flick your whisk too hard. It probably gets on your face and hair but that’s okay.

The batter is at the right consistency, you consider leaving it in the fridge for a little bit, but you don’t really have the time. You pour it into your cake tin, watching one layer of batter fold over another until it all fuses together. 

Before putting it in the oven, you take sticks of butter and confectioners’ sugar and whipping cream, feeling guilty just  _ looking _ at it, and whisk it all together. Buttercream frosting.

When the batter is in the oven and the frosting in the fridge, you pull out your laptop and sink into one of the two chairs at your kitchen table. You bought the thing at a Goodwill; it’s covered in little scratches and half of the wood is discolored. You open up your laptop, and open a Word Doc, fully intending to start your essay.

Your phone chimes. Not the cake timer, but a text.

You pick it up from where it sits at the counter. Why why  _ why _ is your heartbeat racing, why did you leap from your chair so fast? What do you want to see?

(You know what you want to see.)

It’s a text from nobody. Well, not nobody. Just the guy who sits next to you in equity management, asking about the minimum word count for your essay.

**_I’m pretty sure it’s online,_ ** you text, disappointed and kind of irritated. But it’s not his fault that there’s no space in your head to think about equity management because your head is overrun with thoughts of something-- someone, not a thing, well, you  _ should _ call it a thing, because maybe then it won’t sit so heavy and significant in your thoughts-- so you give him the minimum word count and set your phone back down.

_ Get your fucking self together! _

The cake timer still hasn’t gone off.

You pick your phone back up and reopen the messages app. Should you text Loki?

You could say something cute, like  **_hey i made too much cake!_ ** or something noncommittal, like,  **_i just did a thing,_ ** or just straight up say  **_hey are you free rn because i want to see you even though you’re freaky as hell!_ **

And then add a smiley face.

**_:)_ **

You shouldn’t do it. Texting Loki would be a casual, _ personal  _ move, an admission that he was in your thoughts and you’re spending your precious seconds and minutes and hours on him. And you’re not there yet, and will never be. He’s still _ Loki,  _ even though his past doesn’t make you nauseous or teary-eyed. He’s still a mentally unstable God, and probably too much for you to handle. You had  _ one _ decent encounter with him over the weekend and your stomach is all twisted in knots, that wouldn’t happen with a normal person!

You should stay away.

Okay, and if you didn’t?

You could wear another of your dresses and he could compliment that too. You could invite him over and eat cake together and he could say something in his Asgardian accent and you would hate it and enjoy it. 

God, since when did all of your daydreams become so  _ domestic? _ Also, when did you get so pathetic, daydreaming about your psycho neighbor?

It’s not like that. You’re just lonely and need more friends.

The cake timer is still silent.

You swipe to his contact. The text you sent from his phone is still there, blazing bold and immature. He hasn’t texted you anything back.

Because it’s not like that. You’re barely friends, you just read into things too much and are hypersensitive because he scares you, and you’re always on edge. You’ve felt this way before, you do not want to succumb to it.

Do _ not  _ do it.

Thumbs sweep across the keyboard, you try to come up with something to say. You type out a text, delete it, type it out again. One draft, two, three, five. It’s too much. Everything you type suddenly feels juvenile and stupid.

The cake timer goes off! 

You shut off your phone. This is not something you should worry about. You slide on your oven mitts and grab a toothpick and open the oven door. The heat is searing, and tentatively, you stick the toothpick into the center of the cake. It comes out clean, no batter stuck to the wood, your cake is done!

***

Loki’s index finger hovers over his phone.

Should he text you?

It was easy to say that he was going to be around you more with Stark glaring daggers at him and Thor standing there with disappointed puppy-dog eyes. Now it seems childish, and absolutely  _ daunting _ because he has no idea about what the proper etiquette for situations like these is.

On Asgard, he would do something cheeky, on brand with mischief and lies. If you were there in the palace, hanging around Thor and Sif and whoever else, he would lurk around you, until you would notice him and smile and swish the skirts of the gown you were wearing (or maybe you would prefer armor like Sif, which is no less enticing), Thor sighing in annoyance and asking  _ Loki, do you need something? _

You would blush and would excuse yourself from your friends and would come with him. The combined sound of your feet clicking over the polished tiles would ring loud in the palace halls, and he would reach out and pull at one of the braids in your elaborate hairdo (or maybe you would prefer wearing it loose like Sif, which is fine!), and you would swat at his hand and playfully act upset. But you would smile and would spend a sunny afternoon with him.

Norns, what is he  _ on? _

Why is he being so  _ ridiculous? _

Text her, or don’t.

Okay, say he does it. 

What would he even  _ write? _

Loki tries to type out a text, but he barely knows how this blasted technology  _ works, _ and he can feel himself getting hotter and colder by the second, because all the little mortal children walk around with these rectangles all day and know exactly what they’re doing, but again, this is another little enormous thing that he has no idea to do. All of these things concerning mortals, people like you, completely mess him up, leave his mind sputtering and stammering.

He is  _ not  _ going to text you.

Someone texts him,

The notification goes off, a tinny  _ ping, _ and it startles him to the point where the phone falls out of his hands, clattering onto the floor. He reaches down to pick it up, hands shaking because he has only three numbers in his phone, Thor, his therapist, and  _ you, _ and he only wants a text from one person out of those three. Surprise! Who could it be?

**_hi :)_ ** The text reads, from you, thank Gods, you.

**_Hello,_ ** he types, hands still shaking. It takes him a good minute to type out just five letters.

**_if ur free rn would u wanna come over?,_ ** you text, and Loki’s heart starts beating so hard that it’s about to crack his rib cage. _ Come over. _

A second text comes through.  **_i made cake_ **

A third.

**_(rn means right now)_ **

It’s like he’s experiencing sensory overload, even though the only senses really being affected are his eyes. This must be a dream, a wild, surreal  _ nightmare  _ where everything is moving too fast and all the things he asked for without realizing the consequences are being handed to him. 

Not unlike how he had his army and tried to invade Midgard, he realizes. He was getting his fill of power, devouring it like the stupid glutton he is, and in response it completely ruined his life. Which could happen now.

**_Okay_ ** , he texts, which again takes a minute, but he sends it and can’t hear anything, can’t hear the sound of the bristles on his hairbrush as he combs his hair, the jangle of his keys that he slips into his pocket, the squeak of the door hinge as he leaves and walks the three short steps to your door. He can’t hear any of it over the beating of his own heart and the throbbing in his mind because this is an awful, disastrous mistake, and he doesn’t really feel bad about it at all.

***

Yes, you texted him!

And you regret it all immediately after, especially because Loki spends  _ ages _ typing and hits you  _ twice _ with one-word responses. Which is a red flag in every other situation.

This is not like every other situation, though.

To make up for your  _ awful _ decision, you compromise on other things. Keeping your glasses on, instead of putting in your contacts. Staying in the same sweatshirt and leggings you wore to class, even though there’s little streaks of flour on the black fabric of your leggings, but it’s not that noticeable, and Loki’s not going to notice, anyway.

You’re frosting the cake when he knocks on the door and you jump skip  _ rush _ to get it.

Loki stands there in your doorway, and it’s another deja vu moment, except Saima’s not there and his hands are empty and you’re now supposed to invite him in, even if just the sight of him makes your heart fall to the floor and beat uselessly against the floor. Dear  _ God _ you are going insane.

***

You’re there and you’re you, so up close and personal that he feels out of breath.

You wear glasses. Why do so many Midgardians wear glasses? Loki didn’t know you wore glasses, he’s never seen you in glasses! It’s a small, intimate detail that feels like too monumental of a detail for you to give him. He doesn’t deserve to know little details like this, and he doesn’t want to. But you’ve given it to him and he takes it.

“I still have to frost it,” you tell him, and he has absolutely  _ no _ idea what you mean.

You head back to your kitchen and Loki takes the time to look around. He’s never been in someone’s space like this before. 

Your entire apartment is cramped, and so is his, but you own actual  _ things _ that take up space. A mug reading _ New York University _ filled with pens sitting on your counter. A sweatshirt thrown over the back of a sofa. A laptop with its screen dark on your dining table, the backpack you carry down the stairs every day leaning against a table leg. Little things, more little pieces of you.

“Do they have cake on Asgard?” You ask, snapping his attention back to you. He watches you take a bowl of something out of your refrigerator and a flat spatula from a drawer.

“Yes,” he says, “it’s  _ Asgard,”  _ which, for him, is a surefire explanation. How can a place like Asgard  _ not _ have cake?

“Do they have frosting?”

He doesn’t know what frosting is, another unfamiliar Midgardian word that sits heavy on his tongue. But he somehow doesn’t feel the same shame, even if it’s a trivial detail that everyone else knows, because you probably don’t care either way, and that nonchalance is kind of nice.

You notice his silence and laugh. “Come here,” you say, and gesture at him with the spatula.

Loki comes closer, two steps and he’s already in your kitchen. You gesture again, not looking at him and instead at your cake, which stands naked on a large plate. “I don’t bite,” you chide, and he’s right at your side and can smell your orange blossom perfume and the vanilla scent of cake and see little streaks of flour on your pants.

“This,” you shove the spatula in the bowl with alarming intensity, “is frosting. It’s like sweet butter, kind of? You put it on cake and cupcakes and cookies and stuff. If you know what those are. Basically just pastries.”

He peers into the bowl. Your  _ frosting _ sits there, a yellowish white color, not unlike the butter you mentioned, and it looks absolutely bland. You don’t see it the way he does, though, and he watches as you start to spread it on the cake with your spatula, a little messily. 

“I don’t understand the appeal,” he says, and you frown, which makes him smile.

“I don’t understand  _ your _ appeal,” you say, turning the plate to cover more of the cake, and it does sting a little bit, subconsciously, but this is just banter! He’s being unnecessarily sensitive, he needs to get himself together.

“Then why am I here, dear?” He asks, keeping his tone icy and disinterested, even if he’s hanging on to each of your words, gripping them with clenched teeth and white knuckles

You’re halfway done with frosting your cake, still not looking at him and  _ Gods _ he just wants to reach out and yank your chin up. 

“Eye candy,” you say, while swiping at the last bare side of your cake, and he nearly loses his footing and crashes right there on your floor, at your feet.

_ “What?” _ He’s blushing and out of breath and a  _ mess,  _ an absolute mess.  _ Go home,  _ he thinks, and of course his mind starts playing tricks on him (a bit ironic) and all he can think of is polished floors and heavy gowns and elaborate braided hairstyles.

The cake is covered in yellow-white frosting. You finally put your spatula down and look at him, and he instantly wishes there were a hundred more cakes that required your undivided attention so you would look away. “That was a joke.” You blink at him, owlishly. “I was joking.”

“Oh,” is all he can think to say. What kind of response could he give? 

The awkwardness that follows is  _ tangible. _

Silently, you start moving around again, grabbing two mismatched plates and two forks and a large, sharp knife that you sink into your cake with no prior warning. The cake cuts easily, and you put a thick slice on each plate, frosting smearing the plate.

You hand him one of the plates and a fork. “Let’s sit over here,” you say, and lead him to your little table with the laptop.

It’s still awkward as he sits down across from you, acutely aware that if he pushes in his chair a few inches more his feet would knock against yours and it would be another weird horrible thing to happen to him. Where did all the confidence he had earlier go? Why can he only be so cocky and unaffected around people that are doubting him, Stark,  _ Thor?  _

You slam your laptop shut. The noise startles him, and he jumps a little in his seat, and you laugh, again. 

“Sorry. I just, I have to write this paper, and I fucking  _ hate  _ writing.” You press a hand against your forehead, elbow leaning on the table, right over a big discolored patch of wood. 

Again, he can’t think of anything to say.

You talk more, though, while taking your fork and cutting out a bite of your cake, hand moving slow. “It makes no sense. Because it’s basically over math, and why am I writing an essay about  _ math? _ I don’t even know. What kind of math do they have on Asgard?”

You’re looking at him expectantly, like he’s going to share all of the mathematical secrets of Asgard, which he definitely knows, he’s been educating himself for  _ centuries. _ He looks right back at you, and he still can’t say anything to you, this is nothing like the ease he felt the other day in the coffee shop, and damn it you’re just a mortal! He’s breaking down, cracking at the edges for  _ no reason. _

He tries to ignore you, this was a pathetic idea, and tries some of the cake, which is really good, and sweet, but can’t get rid of the bitter taste in his mouth, he should really go.

“I should go,” he tells you, rising up from his chair. Everything here feels wrong wrong wrong. He feels acutely aware of everything, the fabric of his shirt against his arms, his keys in his pocket, the fork clattering to your plate when you stand up with him, dismay written all over your furrowed brow and glasses sliding down your nose, sweatshirt rolled up to your elbows.

“Are you okay?” You ask, genuinely concerned and it makes him want to hiss at you. “If you don’t like the cake, just tell me. It’s not a big deal, Loki.”

It’s not your fucking cake! 

It’s you, he wants to shout, and do something, maybe turn blue or ignite flames in his palms, or conjure two or three or five more clones of himself, just so you can see that he’s not this  _ person.  _ He’s a god, a  _ God, _ a serious messed up person that can’t do things like this. He can’t be nice and domestic and tell you stories and smile at you on the stairwell as if he doesn’t want to bite you and never look at you again. Tony Stark was right, maybe he is as intelligent as everyone says he is, he needs to get far,  _ far _ away from you.

“I’m going to go,” he says, goes all the way to your door, unlatching the metal lock that he could probably crush in his hand if he really tried (maybe he should, just to show you), and then you’re suddenly there, right next to him.

“What the hell are you doing?” You ask, upset and confused. “Did something happen?”

“I can’t talk to you!” He shouts, and he used a contraction, his therapist would be proud, and the people living nearby must be upset at the noise.

You flinch at the outburst. Loki feels a little bit of guilt, enough to stop moving and to stare down at you. He resists the urge to push your glasses back up your nose. You stare back up at him, using one hand to push up your glasses yourself. A fingerprint smudges one of the lenses, he’s too close to you.

He takes a step back. Back into your apartment, your world of essays about math and sugary cake.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” he whispers, and crumbles under the weight of panic and distrust and that awful pressure that comes with not conforming with  _ anything _ in this realm, and also just the way you said his name earlier,  _ Loki. _

***

“Okay,” you say, curled up in your squashy armchair, while Loki sprawls across the sofa the same way Saima does when she comes over, “so he’s a superhero and saved the world and everything, but Tony Stark is kind of a dick.”

Loki smiles. “Yes, dear. He is a,” he takes a deep inhale, like he needs the extra breath to say something so vulgar, “a  _ dick.” _

He told you everything, this ridiculous story about how Tony Stark installed cameras in your fucking apartment and  _ spied _ on you, and now thinks that Loki is going to  _ hurt _ you. 

Loki could definitely hurt you if he wanted to, you know that. But again, there was that vulnerability in him that you keep on seeing glimpses of; his laughter, his disappointment, even just the way he talks. 

And Tony Stark probably sees him way more than you do, so wouldn’t he be seeing these things too?

He’s not going to hurt you.

“What are you going to do about it?” You ask.

“I will be spending a lot of time with you,” he says, deliberately not looking at you.

Your heartbeat thunders in your chest. 

“Bitch, you, like, didn’t even eat my cake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have NO IDEA what i just wrote. i just pulled up my three (3) hozier songs, put those bad boys on repeat, and proceeded to go HAM on the keyboard. wrote over 3k words i have no idea what any of them say. except i know i didn't write the fluff that i was expecting to write but that's now gonna be next chapter. also fun fact: frosting was not invented until 1494 and that's after the middle ages and i always saw asgard as somewhere in the middle ages?? without the poverty and death rates and sickness and all of that. so basically not like the middle ages except for those hugeass castles. idk um kudos and comments are appreciated. hope u all have a good day!!!


	6. red velvet and croissant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you and loki are becoming better friends

You have a pretty standard morning routine.

Get up, get ready, eat breakfast if you aren’t running short on time, and you usually are. Shove everything in your backpack, even if you forgot to charge your laptop overnight and it’s barely hanging on at 4%. Grab your keys, your phone, and head out. Lock your door and make your way to the stairwell.

But now, after Loki pointed it out to you, you don’t directly head to the stairwell. You lock your door, take two steps. Turn your head up to the ceiling. Look directly at the camera planted between yours and Loki’s door, so small that it can pass off as a smudge of dirt or dust.

Give Tony Stark your brightest smile and wave, standing on your tiptoes to make sure that he sees it clearly.  _ Then _ you head to the stairwell.

Loki’s smiling when you see him. He’s been forgoing his hair gel recently, a decision you wholly support. He looks so  _ nice _ right now, even though he’s all sweaty from his workout. His hair messily pulled back into a bun at the nape of his neck. He looks less sharp and cutting and mean. You like it, a lot.

“Hey,” you say, smiling back. 

“Hello, (Y/n),” he replies, right when you pass him on the stairs, his voice right in your ear and  _ still _ causing chills on your neck.

Things are going okay, though, with him. Loki is awkward and flightish and unsettling, but it’s nothing that you can’t handle. 

(Most likely.)

***

“Try this.”

You slide a plate with a slice of yet  _ another  _ cake across your counter towards Loki. He looks down at it.

“What is it?” He asks you. It looks good, of course, but unfamiliar. More frosting, yellowish white and unevenly clumpy. You had tried to do something different with it, squeezing it out onto the cake from a plastic bag with a bottom corner cut out. 

It had gone everywhere  _ except  _ for on the cake, and you swore loudly and he laughed at you, and then you cleaned up the mess and licked frosting off your palm and he almost slapped you.

“Red velvet cake,” you say, cutting another slice for yourself. “It’s just chocolate, but dyed red. And the frosting is cream cheese.”

Red. He’s not a big fan of red, at all. His eyes, his  _ real _ eyes are red. Thor’s cape is red, Iron Man is red, hot sticky blood is red red red. Your dress was red.

Your short little dress was red, this cake is red.

It’s just a cake. Why does every little small, inconsequential thing always punch him in the face, like he’s facing the end of the world and everything is in flames and going wrong?

Loki picks up the fork at the side of the plate, cuts himself a bite. He looks up at you and you’re leaning up against the other side of the counter, staring right at him. There’s a small smear of crumbs at the corner of your mouth.

He takes a bite, and again, it’s good, but not really anything fantastic.

“This is delicious,” he tells you. He cuts out another bite.

You blush and smile, casting your eyes away from him. “Thanks,” you say so prettily, so sweetly, that for a second he really does feel like he’s back in Asgard.

You didn’t make this, respected women in Asgard don’t set foot in the kitchen. But you stole it from the palace kitchens, wrapped it in thin brown parchment and hid it in your skirts, and met him somewhere desolate. The library, a secluded part of the gardens, maybe a back corridor where even the servants don’t venture.

You would pull out the cake (without frosting in this scenario), and he would tease you about something and you would playfully swat at him, maybe brush your hand against his shoulder, and it wouldn’t make him nauseous and he wouldn’t recoil from your touch. You and him would eat the cake with your fingers, forgoing silverware because you forgot (maybe this is what he can tease you about!), and there would be crumbs at the corner of your mouth and he would wipe them away with his thumb.

And you would smile again, the way you are now, and cast your eyes away from him. You would be so  _ delicate _ in the Asgardian moment, just as you are now. He’s nearly forgotten that you’re really of a crude species, a  _ mortal. _

How can you be so nice and so horrible?

Loki watches you now, how you look so very  _ sweet _ , scraping at some frosting on your plate with the tines of your fork, while simultaneously wincing at the noise it makes. 

“Let me ask you something,” you say. “So, when you were a kid, like, centuries ago, why did you decide to learn magic? And what’s your title? Are you, um, a  _ magician,  _ or a wizard-”

“I am a _ god,”  _ he interrupts. “Magicians and wizards are  _ mortal _ creations. My magic is too  _ complex _ for those titles.”

“I see” you say, and put your fork on your plate. “You’re _ Loki  _ of  _ Assgard _ and you’re a  _ god _ and you do  _ complex _ magic.” You poorly mimic his accent.

“I do  _ not _ talk like that.”

You grin at him and his heartbeat stutters. “You do! I like it though. You sound British.”

Loki has no idea what British is and what it means to sound that way, but his mind is kind of reeling because you like how he talks. 

He should talk more, then, right?

“My mother taught me magic,” he says, “when I was a child. She taught me everything I know.”

“That’s really sweet,” you say, and your face takes on a look he can’t describe. Suddenly things feel more solemn.

“Why are you studying,” he racks his mind for the word, “finance?”

It was the right question. You’re pulled away from whatever was going on in your head and back with him.

“I’m good at math. And there’s a lot you can do with a finance degree. My dad studied finance, too.” You sigh. “I just wish I didn’t sign up for the earliest classes, because I usually sleep in too late, and then I don’t have time to eat breakfast, and then I just get tired.”

He thinks of you on the stairwell, backpack on your shoulders, wearing blue jeans and no glasses. 

Your plate is empty, and somehow Loki’s is too, he didn’t even realize that he was eating, too caught up in you and your words. You take his plate and stack it on top of yours, place them both in the sink. He watches you cut the rest of the cake into thick slices and put the slices into a plastic container, frosting smearing the sides, and putting it in your fridge.

“This is really fun,” you say, with your back turned to him, “I like hanging out with you.”

***

A few days after you hang out with Loki, your mom calls you.

This is, like, a  _ seasonal _ occurrence, since she likes to parent with other methods (involving routing numbers and gifts like fancy Kitchenaid mixers and whatnot), and she already called you last month, so this is a pretty big deal.

You’re expecting some huge news. Maybe your dad is retiring, or she’s being sent to jail for committing tax fraud.

“You don’t need to come home for Thanksgiving this year. We won’t be home.”

It’s barely October. But she does this every year.

“Oh,” you say.

“I already cancelled your ticket. You can spend it with your friends instead, won’t that be nice?”

You spent Thanksgiving at Saima’s last year, and it was such an  _ awkward  _ experience, her entire extended family staring at you, bewildered, why isn’t she with her own family? You’re not going to do that again, become the pity invite. 

“Yeah.”

Your mom sighs, breath crackling over the phone. She’s probably driving.

The silence stretches out.

“Hey,” you say, before she can get a word in, “I have to go. To class.”

“Okay,” your mom sounds relieved, “Bye, sweetie.”

You resist the urge to throw your phone at the wall.  _ Sweetie. _ What the fuck?

_ Fuck off,  _ you want to scream at her, but she’s already hung up. 

You hold your phone for a long minute. What are you even doing?

It’s okay, it’s all okay, nothing is wrong! You gather your stuff and put it in your backpack. Find a pair of socks, slip them on, not noticing that one is grey and the other is neon pink. Put your phone in your pocket, head out.

You step into the stairwell, feeling slightly light-headed. Did you really think that you would actually go home this year? That this year would be different? That your mom is really going to sit down with your dad and plan out her life, and take your feelings into consideration while making travel plans? You’re just, like, her _ daughter.  _ Not someone important or anything.

Loki’s standing at the bottom of the stairwell, like normal. You smile at him, as you usually do, and try to greet him, but the words die in your throat.

He steps forward and there’s something in his hand, a small bag with a logo on it. The logo of the little coffee shop around the corner, and before you know it he’s close to you, not quite close enough to touch you, you’ve learned that he has an aversion to physical contact, which is fine, but close nonetheless.

His cheeks are pink. You would laugh at him if it didn’t feel like there’s something pressing at your insides, squeezing tighter and tighter until even just breathing takes a concentrated effort. 

“You said you aren’t always able to eat breakfast,” he says, and holds out the bag to you. 

His hand is shaking, you can see the tangle of blue veins on the inside of his pale wrist. Your hand is dead-cold and clammy as you take the bag from him. You still can’t say anything.

You open the bag and inside is a croissant.

Loki of fucking Asgard, pyschopath-god-neighbor, bought you a croissant.

“Thanks, sweetie” you say, and then clap a hand over your mouth because holy  _ shit _ you did  _ not  _ just say that, and Loki’s eyes go wide, and then you feel something wet against your hand and it’s a tear and you’re crying.

You shove the bag back at Loki and he takes it without question, staring at you in shock. You furiously swipe at your eyes, trying to stop crying, but your breath keeps on coming in awful shudders and you can’t even make sense of what you’re doing, so you just turn away from him and shield your eyes with your hand. Like it will shield you from your embarrassment, from the fact that you’re in tears in front of a grown man over something that shouldn’t be a big deal to you.

“Fuck,” you hiccup, once your breathing is under control, “I’m so sorry. I was just, um, not expecting that.” You reach out and take the bag from him again.

Loki looks reluctant to stay there with you, but he doesn’t move. “It’s okay,” he says, eventually, and then, with such tenderness that you flinch, “What’s wrong, dear?”

You’re going to be late for your first class, even if you run all the way to the subway. 

“Walk with me,” you say, and open the door to the stairwell. You pull the croissant halfway out of the bag, using the rest of the bag as a wrapper, and take a bite.

***

“My mom just, uh, doesn’t really like me. Does that make sense?”

Loki doesn’t hesitate or lie. “Yes.”

He walks alongside you on the crowded sidewalk, you leading the way. He feels shaken. It’s not from your crying, he knows that mortals are sensitive and little things can set them off, but that you displayed such vulnerability in front of  _ him.  _

There’s also the matter of the nickname you called him, and it was on accident, you told him, so he’s going to leave it at that.

“It’s like, she loves me, because you’re supposed to love your kids. But she never spends time with me or listens to me or calls me to see how I’m doing. She just buys me stuff, or pays my rent, and acts like that makes up for everything else.”

“My father is-  _ was _ the same,” Loki finds himself saying, because he feels bad for you, and oddly empathetic with your problems, which are disturbingly similar to his problems. He’s given this same admission to his therapist before, but this is the first time he actually means what he’s saying.

You nod. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” you say, fiddling with the straps of your backpack. “It’s so  _ tiring.  _ I’m always tired.”

He’s overcome with the sudden urge to hug you, to wrap his arms around you and tell you that you will be okay and that your mother doesn’t deserve someone like you, someone nice and smart and pretty, but he’s not that type of person yet. If he touched you like that, your skin would probably blister and peel off because he’s touching you with a killer’s hands and you would jolt away from him and cry some more.

“You will be okay,” he tells you, and after a moment, touches your shoulder, tentatively. You tense up, surprised, and he pulls his hand away like your shoulder is hot. 

You look guilty.

“I have to go,” you tell him, “but, thank you. Again.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, and decides last minute, because this situation is getting too heavy and he himself might break down under its weight, “sweetie.”

You smile and laugh a little. “I might just make that your new nickname. Bye.”

Loki watches you disappear into the sea of people, standing in place as people curse at him as they bump into him, but he refuses to move. Just like that, you’re gone, purple sweatshirt and tear-tracked face out of his sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone!! i had a lot of fun writing this chapter!! switched up the writing playlist to some frank ocean to get a different vibe :) so reader has parent issues, which i made some subtle hints about in earlier chapters, but i didn't go full-force because i wasn't sure if i wanted to add that to the story. but then i realized that i do!! and this is going to work alongside tony's surveillance which will be talked about more next chapter (hopefully), and the parent issues are eventually going to lead to a There Was Only One (1) Bed Situation because i love that trope!!! hopefully things work out the way it's written in my head. also thank u guys for 109 kudos!! what a milestone, i would like to thank my mom and dad and everyone that had read and commented and liked and bookmarked this story!! u guys mean the world to me!! i hope u all have a fantastic day and remember to washhhhh your hands!!


	7. peanut butter jelly halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the events of october 31st!

Fall comes. Leaves turn yellow golden orange red, shrivel and fall from trees. It’s cold now, you can always see your breath when you go outside. You contemplate buying a pumpkin to place outside your door.

Midterms come, too, and you’re always studying and stressing and studying. More often than not, you’re at the library, or meeting somewhere for a study group with some of your classmates, or trying to review your notes in bed without falling asleep. There isn’t a lot of time for baking, or hanging out with anyone that isn’t Saima, since you sometimes study with her.

You’re with her now at her apartment, which she lives in with her parents. You sit in her room, making flashcards, while she pores over a stapled packet of handouts. It’s mostly silent, save for the rustling of paper and the scratch of your purple glitter pen (keeps it fun!) against the index cards. And, of course, the traffic blaring outside.

The studying goes on for a while, nearly an hour, until Saima throws her packet onto her desk and sighs loudly.

“I’m done studying for today,” she says, getting up from her chair and flopping onto the bed. She spreads her arms and legs wide, like a starfish. “My head hurts.”

“Yeah, we can stop.” You cap your pen and gather the flashcards. Secure them all together with a hair tie, which works better than a rubber band.

“How’s your neighbor?”

Fuck.

You’re sitting on the floor, back against the foot of the bed, so you twist around to face her, prop your elbows on the mattress. Saima isn’t looking at you, she keeps her eyes on the ceiling, but she’s clenching her fists, nails digging into her palms. What are you supposed to say?

_ I cried in front of him, so basically we’re really good friends now. I like him a lot. _

You can’t say things like that!

“I’m not dead yet,” you tell her, and she doesn’t laugh. She’s still fully convinced that Loki will eventually attempt something evil, because he  _ was _ evil.

He’s still evil, though, technically, right? Being nice to your neighbor doesn’t really make up for murder.

“He could still hurt you,” she says.

“Yeah,” you say. 

He definitely could _ not,  _ not after he hangs out with you and says good morning to you and buys you breakfast, after he listens to you talk and tells you about how the Avengers treat him and you now smile at surveillance cameras, after he  _ didn’t _ shy away from you after his panic-outburst the day of the vanilla cake.

But you can’t say any of it out loud, so to Saima, it doesn’t exist. It never happened. To her, Loki is psychotic and evil and a killer and probably cries for the villain when he watches action movies, if he knows what movies are.

“Be careful,” she says. She sits up, scoots closer to the end of the bed where your elbows are, and flops back over on her stomach. “Okay, what are you doing for Halloween?”

Halloween?

_ God, _ you’re so wrapped up in midterms that you hadn’t even though that far. In your freshman year of college you bought a cheap cat-ear headband at Walgreens, put it on with a black dress and went to a party as a “cat.” You knew maybe two people there and drank one too many drinks (you had one drink), and since then you’ve just stayed home and watched TV.

“The usual,” you say.

“Ugh,” Saima says, “come to a party with me! We can dress up as, like, a duo costume.”

“I don’t know if I want to do that.” 

Watching TV sounds like a way better idea, or even just taking a nap. Or even  _ studying. _

“Come  _ on, _ (Y/n)! Please? We can do something super dumb, like peanut butter and jelly. You can even be jelly!”

You close your eyes and rest your head on your palm. “I’ll think about it.”

***

You get to your apartment and try to find your keys. They’re not in your pocket, or in the little side pockets of your backpack. You take off your backpack and rifle through the bigger pockets, hoping that you find them underneath all the textbooks and crumpled papers and gum wrappers that you never throw away.

You’re still looking and don’t notice when the door behind you opens and Loki saunters out. 

“Lost these?”

You whip around, startled. Loki’s standing in front of you, twirling your key ring around his index finger. There’s a lopsided smile on his face, a  _ smirk, _ that makes your heart hammer in your chest, so much that everything else around you fades away.

“My keys,” you say, dumbly, and consider smacking yourself right then and there.

Loki tosses them at you,  _ wow,  _ he’s in a good mood, and you barely catch them with one hand, the other still gripping your backpack. “Did you use magic for that?”

He nods, and you acutely notice other things, really  _ nice _ things. His forest green button-down, for example, which he’s tucked in the front, a look that he is  _ definitely _ pulling off. He’s rolled up his sleeves, pale forearms on display, just like that! He’s extremely pale, milky slivers of skin on display; hollow of his throat, tip of his ear, the bony flesh of his ankles.

The thoughts you had at Saima’s house rattle around guiltily in your head, killer,  _ murderer.  _ You’re right, completely right, but this moment is right too.

“Going somewhere?” You ask, trying hard (not trying) to stop staring. 

“Out to dinner with my brother,” he says, and maybe that’s why he’s so positively radiant, he loves his brother! Loki loves his brother. “And his girlfriend.”

Girlfriend?

It’s never occurred to you that gods can date around. 

“Sounds fun!” You fumble with your keys, trying to find the right one, an excuse to not focus on happy, smiley, Loki, even if you really want to. “Have a good time!”

“I will,” he says, and blushes a little. He turns away and heads down the hallway.

But you remember last minute about what you’re supposed to do.

“Loki, wait!” You call, and he turns back to you. “Come here, for just a second.”

He ambles back up to you. You move a few feet back, he moves back with you. You tilt your chin up and squint, trying to find the camera. When you catch sight of it, barely visible against the ceiling, you smile and wave, and jump up and down a little. Throw a peace sign.

_ “What  _ are you doing?” 

You turn to Loki, and he’s staring, still smiling, though, amused. “I’m saying hi to Iron Man. Hi, Mr. Stark!” You wave again. “You know, I’ve always wanted to meet him.”

Loki smiles wider. “Do you do this often?”

You drop your hands and turn to him.  _ “Every _ day,” you say, nodding solemnly, his good mood is rubbing off on you, too. Your heartbeat sprints to keep up with it.

Strange things have happened ever since he moved in, and another one happens now. 

Loki puts a hand on your shoulder, just like he did the other day, like he’s about to tell you the most important thing in his world. His eyes bore right into you, but you feel light, not nervous or jumpy, you feel like maybe you’re floating a little bit, toes barely skimming the ground, like there’s wings on your back, barely in use but in use.

“(Y/n), I appreciate that more than you can know.”

Your heart is going to fall out of your chest, your mind hasn’t felt a respite like this in a long time. 

“No problem,” you manage to choke out.

He drops his hand and walks away.

If you’re alone on Halloween you might do something awful like invite Loki over and spend time with him, something you should  _ not _ be doing.

You are  _ definitely _ going to go to the party.

***   
You are definitely  _ not _ going to the party.

It’s Halloween and the city is alive with children. They’re  _ everywhere,  _ judging by what you can see from your window, on crosswalks, outside every business, probably crammed inside your apartment lobby, trick-or-treating. Interacting with them is something you want to avoid.

You go outside only in the morning, just to buy a box of ice cream sandwiches, intending to stay inside for the rest of the evening, until it’s time for you to go to Saima’s. 

She decided against the peanut butter and jelly costume idea! This is extremely disappointing, it was a  _ fantastic _ idea! But it’s difficult to look cute while dressed up as something you spread on toast and bagels, so Saima had picked something else, which you don’t know the specifics about, but probably involves shirts that stretch tight against chests and fun little skirts, even though it’s absolutely  _ freezing _ outside and it’s expected to snow next week.

You’re dreading this party.

You spend the time leading up to heading over to Saima’s apartment in pajamas, fuzzy yellow with white polka-dots. It’s a Saturday, thankfully, and you don’t study at all, or bake, or do laundry or clean your bathroom. Those are tasks meant to be accomplished in a panic late Sunday evening.

When it’s almost time to leave, and you’re reaching for a pair of jeans in your closet to replace the pajamas, the power cuts out.

Lights go dark, your fridge stops humming. 

“Fuck,” you sigh, and wait a few minutes to see if it’ll turn back on. When it doesn’t, you text your landlady.

Your landlady texts back in record time, telling you that the electrician was fixing something for another apartment and must’ve messed something up. **_It’ll probably be a while,_ ** she texts, and you feel such utter relief, because now you have an excuse to miss the party. How can you go out if there’s no power? What if something happens when you’re gone? You  _ have _ to stay home.

And it’s too late to make plans with Loki, so you’re safe. 

But you could text him, right? Just to ask if his power is out, too. Not if he likes ice cream sandwiches, because that would be very inappropriate. It’s too late!

***

Loki’s power goes out. 

He’s reading when the lights all shut off, quickly enough to startle him. The book slips from his hands and he loses what page he’s on. That’s not important, though, because the lights are off and he’s in the dark and all by himself, and is something horrible about to happen to him? Maybe this is it, this is  _ it _ . Tony Stark and Bruce Banner and the Black Widow and the other Avengers are going to crash through the walls and kill him right here and now.

He stays in his chair, alert and terrified, his magic right beneath the surface of his skin, ready to attack, to protect him. Should he summon his armor, leather pants and heavy boots with the chunky soles and helmet? If he did die, he would make a ravishing corpse.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he jumps. He reaches for it slowly, tentatively, like it could explode if he manhandles it.

The screen glows bright in the dark of the apartment, one new text message.

**_hey is your power out?_ **

It’s just you. Loki feels even more panic, are the Avengers targeting you, too? For associating with him, for giving smiles to the “security” camera, or just as an additional casualty, not thought about and unplanned.

**_Yes,_ ** he texts with a shaking finger.

**_ugh no way_ **

**_apparently the electrician fucked something up and it’s not coming back for a while_ **

**_i love new york !_ **

Three messages in a row, Gods, how can he keep up? He can barely type a sentence in a minute. But his panic goes down, a little bit, because maybe he’s not going to be killed tonight. Maybe Midgard just has faulty electricians and these things happen routinely. He’s still panicked, though, because what is he supposed to text you back?

**_Afraid of the dark?_ ** That’s a good response, he thinks, and he left out the words “are you,” because texts are supposed to be short. He knows that from the texts you send him.

**_absolutely,_ ** you respond, and it makes something inside of him stir.  **_BUT i have ice cream. so i should be ok_ **

**_do they have ice cream on asgard?_ **

Loki thinks of ice cream on Asgard, served in pretty crystal dishes that caught the light and sent rainbows in every direction on sunny afternoons. He always ate with a tiny golden spoon, making his mother smile in approval, while Thor waited for his to melt to soup that he could drink, so his gums didn’t go numb and his head didn’t ache. Loki never got headaches or numbness in his gums, though, maybe because he never felt cold.

He loves ice cream.

**_What is ice cream?_ **

He hits send.

***

You’re doing it, you’re doing the things you didn’t want to do!

The box of ice cream sandwiches is tucked under your arm as you knock on Loki’s door. He had switched it up this time, inviting  _ you _ over, a move that made you stare at your phone in shock for a minute before typing a frantic  **_yes._ **

You didn’t feel like changing in the dark, so you stayed in pajamas. The hallway lights are off, too, so you stand in the dark. Is the camera still working? You wonder if Tony Stark is watching you right now, or if he has a kid that he takes trick-or-treating.

Loki opens the door and you can still see the shine of his eyes in the dark, the flash of his teeth as he smiles.

“Are you ready for the  _ best _ experience of your life?” You ask, and come inside.

***

The lights from outside, from buildings and cars and street lights, coming in through the window, are bright enough that Loki can see the elation on your face as you come inside, drop your box of ice cream on his kitchen counter. You move around the space with a comfortable familiarity. His apartment is the exact layout of yours, just flipped.

“Ice cream sandwiches,” you say, prying open the box by its cardboard flaps, “are an American  _ classic. _ I love them.”

You love them.

“Americans eat too much sugar,” he says.

You pull out two sandwiches, wrapped in plasticky white paper.

He laughs when you take your first bite. He can make out your grimace, the way you try to blink back whatever your head feels like. “Brain-freeze,” you mumble, and to soothe it you take another bite.

Loki tries his sandwich, too. It’s  _ exactly _ how it tastes on Asgard, sugary-sweet vanilla, only mildly offset by the chocolate, and then he thinks about his mother and little golden spoons and he’s surrounded in awful, cloying nostalgia that he can’t shake off.

In an attempt to distract himself, he tries to find something to say to you. Usually you do more of the talking, because his mind doesn’t work right talking to mortals, of course, and he likes to know what you have to say.

“Why are there so many  _ children _ outside?” He asks. That’s good, a legitimate question. There is a strange amount of children outside, wearing colorful clothes and walking around everywhere.

“It’s Halloween,” you say. “It’s a holiday where kids wear costumes and, uh, go around asking for candy. It’s supposed to be scary.”

Loki sniffs. “That’s distasteful.”

From where you sit, on the same (the very same!) sofa as him but a respectable distance away from him, he manages to see your grin. He can even see your teeth in the dark. “I know! I don’t like kids. But the dressing up part is a lot of fun, especially when you do a group costume.”

“Group costume?”

You’ve finished your sandwich and are folding the wrapper into a smaller and smaller square. It crinkles under your fingers, he imagines that your fingers are sticky with ice cream. “You can do a costume that works with multiple people. Like, if you’re in a big group, everyone could dress up as an Avenger. Or if it’s just two people, one person could be peanut butter and the other person could be jelly. Isn’t that a great idea?”

He imagines you dressed up as a jar of jelly. “Not at  _ all, _ dear.”

You sigh. “I was going to do it with Saima, she was going to be peanut butter and I was going to be jelly! And we were going to go to some party, but then she decided that she didn’t want to dress up as that.”

Loki thinks of your friend that doesn’t like him, the one you spend most of your time with. Now that he thinks about it, it makes sense. You’re so young and vulnerable and  _ mortal, _ you  _ should  _ be spending time with people like her! Not with him, even if he wants you to, because you don’t deserve to put yourself in the presence of someone like him. Why are you here, anyway?

“Would you prefer to be with… with your friend right now?” He asks, dreading the answer. The sugar from the ice cream is messing with his mind.

You put down the ice cream wrapper on his coffee table. You turn to face him. In the dark, your eyes meet his. He can’t feel cold, but there’s definite chills running down his neck. “I am with my friend right now,” you say, and it’s sappy and over-dramatic and hits him like a dagger in the chest, so he has to stop and do something else, pivot, kick you out and never see you again.

Why does everything going for him always come crashing down?

“Really?” He asks, pathetically.

“Oh my God,” you say, your eyes unrelentless, Norns, can you _ please _ just look away, “yes. What else would we be? Why would I be here right now?”

The dark is a blessing from his mother, he decides, because you can’t see him blush.

***

The sugar from the ice cream is  _ definitely  _ fucking with your brain, because after you ask your stupid questions you lean forward, still a good few feet away from Loki, and say the first thing that sprouts to mind. Senselessly, instinctively.

“You, Loki Laufeyson,  _ sweetie,”  _ he grins in the dark and you love it, “are the peanut butter to my jelly.”

***

Loki’s shocked into silence, so thoroughly shattered that he doesn’t know what to do or say or think or how to breathe, how does that work, again? He smiles at you like there’s nothing else left to do, because if he thinks about it, is there anything left to do? He’s been forgiven.

You tentatively slide a little bit closer to him, moving from the corner cushion to the middle until finally your arm brushes his, the first time it’s happened without being on accident. “Is this okay?” You ask, unsure.

This is everything. This is the respect he’s always craved, respect for him and his boundaries and what he wants. He’s never had it before, though, had hunted for it in his father and brother and on Asgard and Midgard, and had never found it. It remained elusive. Until you, Midgardian mortal girl came along and asked _ is this okay _ for just the way she’s  _ sitting. _

He nods.

“Okay,” you say, and relax. More of your skin hits his skin. “Just promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Do a group costume with me next year. You can even be jelly." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello wonderful lovely fantastic readers!! thank you for joining me for another chapter :) i had a GREAT day today, went on a run and gave myself a haircut and ate lots of hummus and wrote over half of this chapter in one sitting! it's probably an incoherent jumble of half-assed sentences but if you've made it this far into the story then you're probably used to it haha. took a break from plot in this one, i will revisit tony's surveillance in the next chapter!! and why am i writing about halloween in april?? because i LOVE stories set in the fall and winter and loki is a frost giant and i want it to be snowing when he has his first kiss with the reader because yes. anyways thank you guys for all of your continued support, your comments make me so happy!! feel free to leave kudos and let me know what you thought about this chapter!!


	8. wtf tony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tony checks his cameras

Tony’s life is going _ great. _

He spends time with Pepper and Morgan, working through the week and spending weekends at home, as a good father and partner does. He’s happy, doesn’t drink so much. He invents new technology in his lab, flies around the city in his latest suit whenever he feels like it. Fury talks with him, obviously, he’s still working for SHIELD, but he doesn’t always feel the constant pressure of stress at the root of his thoughts, pressing and pressing and pressing. 

It’s great!

Tony hasn’t really checked the cameras he installed to keep surveillance of Loki, confident that his warning had been enough to keep him away from his neighbor. And nobody in that apartment complex has died recently, so it must have worked. He has more important things to worry about than Thor’s emo brother.

Just for fun, now that it’s in his head, he checks the footage, pulling it up on one of his computer screens. He winds back to the morning. 

There’s Loki, leaving early in the morning to go workout, judging by his clothes. Tony snorts. He looks  _ ridiculous _ in gym shorts. An hour later, you step out, the neighbor, with a backpack and a purple hoodie with the words NYU printed on the front. College student, not bad. He wonders what your major is.

You look up at the camera, like you’re looking at him, and Tony feels such utter  _ dread _ when you smile and wave, give a peace sign as if you’re taking a selfie. You mouth something, and there’s no sound on the cameras, otherwise they would be too big to place inconspicuously, but it looks like you’re saying, “Hi, Mr. Stark!” 

He watches you go down the hallway, and he frantically pulls up the elevator footage. but you stop early! You stop at the  _ stairwell, _ and oh _ fuck, _ Tony didn’t put a camera in the stairwell! Who takes the stairs when there’s a perfectly functional elevator? 

You, apparently. You open the door to the stairwell and disappear, and moments later, the door opens, and Loki walks out.

Everything is going wrong, how the hell did he miss this? He’s better than this!

Tony starts winding back the footage on the camera in the hallway, the way you do when you want to rewatch a part of a movie. He passes back a few days, a few weeks, and there’s nothing, just your continuous waving at the cameras and the stairwell door swinging open and shut. Until he gets back to Halloween.

It’s extremely dark in the hallway, the power must be out, but it doesn’t affect the cameras because it’s not connected to the apartment’s power source. You’re there, squinting up at the camera for a second, you must think it’s off because you don’t smile. There’s something in your arms.

He watches you go to Loki’s door,  _ Loki’s door,  _ and knock on it. Loki opens it, the greasy weasel smiles. Well, he’s actually not that greasy anymore, he stopped wearing his hair slicked back for some reason, maybe because it made him look  _ fucking stupid, _ but he’s smiling! At you, and the dread thickens when you walk in and he closes the door behind you. A locked door behind you.

Tony’s warning didn’t work. It’s obvious, you and Loki are friends or more, it’s very likely that you’re more, goddamnit, and Loki isn’t going to let go of you.

He paces the length of his lab, thinking. What could he do? How can he ensure civilian safety, the safety of such a young person with so much ahead of them? 

He thinks of Peter for a second, a young person just like you, and suddenly has an intense, personal desire to make sure you're okay. He wonders, could you let go of Loki?

***

Loki’s on his way up to see his therapist.

There’s a lot of things he could tell her, Mavis the therapist. About himself, about you, his interactions with you. How for once the panic didn’t come clawing at his throat when he sat next to you, and how he felt  _ validated _ and  _ content _ and a bunch of other meaningless words that he can’t say out loud, because his therapist would tell the Avengers, and Tony Stark would accuse him of manipulating you or something worse.

He’s nearly at his therapist’s office when he sees Tony Stark, like the man was conjured from Loki’s own thoughts. Stark is leaning against the door to the office, tacky glasses on, staring right at him. 

“Reindeer Games!” He says, grinning when Loki winces at the nickname. “You’re not going to therapy today. Come with me.”

Loki follows him obediently, like a dog. He hates how powerless he is in this situation, but he put himself in it, so can he really blame Stark and his lack of compassion? Can he really object to being dehumanized like this? He can’t. All he wonders is what he’s being accused of this time, if he accidentally said something too violent in therapy, if they’re going to lock him back up in a cage, just for kicks. 

Again, he would deserve it.

Stark takes him to the same closed-off conference room. Anywhere else would probably have too many eyes watching. When they’re both inside, Stark nearly closes the door, leaving it open just an inch. Maybe he’s paranoid that Loki will try to fight him and he’ll need a quick escape.

“Listen,” Stark says, as if Loki’s not, “why are you trying to do this?”

“Do what?”

Loki knows that you’re going to be a part of this.

Stark sighs. “I know that in your head you think you’re this, this God, and think you’re above us-”

He does think that, because it’s very clearly true.

“-but trying to get with random young girls just because you can? That’s disgusting.”

Loki feels his anger flaring. “That’s not what I’m doing, at all! I  _ like  _ her.”

Is that too much to say? That might’ve been too much to say.

“You like her.”

“Yes.”

Stark shakes his head, like that’s the most unbelievable statement ever made. And it sort of is, if he thinks about it, since he’s probably clinically insane, and has all types of mental issues and trauma, but he still likes you! Well, that could be a maybe, since he’s forgotten what constitutes as “like.” He hasn’t had someone like you, a friend, maybe, someone to talk to outside of his family, in _ centuries _ . 

The age gap part was correct, you are extremely young, aren’t you? Not even a century old.

“And you’re not manipulating her,” Stark says, eyebrows raising high on his forehead.

“I am not!” The anger has transformed a bit into something else, paranoia? 

“Then prove it.” Stark takes on a different look on his face, like he’s trying to swallow something bitter. “We’re having a Thanksgiving dinner. Thor will be there, and so will you, and you’re going to bring your friend.”

What? So many questions, what is Thanksgiving? Another holiday, wasn’t it just Halloween? Did Iron Man just invite him somewhere? And what is him going there with you going to prove? 

“Stark,” Loki says, “I am not going to join you for some dinner-”

“It doesn’t matter.” Stark interrupts. “You’re coming. Bring her, too.”

***

It’s a desperate, possibly risky move. But you don’t have any special powers. You’re not a superhuman or a mutant or possess some otherworldly ability. Tony can’t just barge into your life, maybe sit in your apartment and wait for you to come home, or push you into a car and take you to an undisclosed location, all to just ask, “are you okay?”

Maybe he could reach out to your college, offer some job or position or internship the way he did with Peter, but that could take weeks! Everything could happen in a few weeks. And again, you’re normal! And you seem really nice, even the faux smiles you give the security cameras don’t seem too malicious, and he doesn’t want to scare you. Or hurt you.

If you come to his dinner, which is really Pepper’s dinner, since she’s the one that actually knows how to invite people in a way that’ll make them actually show up, he can see you. You’ll be entering his life, and he can pull you aside and talk to you and see what kind of tricks Loki is pulling this time, see how he’s twisted you into liking him. Because, well, who would willingly like  _ Loki _ fucking  _ Laufeyson? _

A crazy person!

***

It’s easy now. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, you joke with yourself, as you peel the wrapper off of your cup of lemon-flavored pudding. Midterms are over, but finals are approaching, and your schoolwork has increased tenfold; whenever you close your eyes, you see scrawling rows of numbers, pockmarked with random terms and formulas. There’s no time to bake yourself something nice anymore, no lemon tarts or lemon bars or lemon poppyseed muffins to indulge in.

All of the studying isn’t easy. Neither is neglecting your hobby, or eating cheap pudding that your mom would call “empty calories,” even though calories can’t be empty, not technically. 

But Loki? Loki is easy.

Okay, that sounds wrong.

You grab a spoon and sit down at the table, thoughts swimming with him. Not much happened for the rest of Halloween, objectively. You sat with him in the dark and talked about random things, you talking more, as your pattern has become, and occasionally knocked your arm against his, just to feel his skin against yours, an act that has some weird connotations that you don’t want to think about. So you won’t think about it!

When the power came back on, a few hours later, thank God, you went home. That was it, except with the lights on you could see his blush and it made you blush, and when you were in the privacy of your own home you jumped up and down a few times, just to get that feeling out. Again, you’re not going to think about it.

You take a bite of pudding. Cheap, artificially-flavored lemon, sour and sweet and glaringly yellow. Sighing, you pull your laptop out of your backpack, ready to start some homework.

Your phone buzzes.

Yes, a distraction!

One new text, your screen reads. You click it and it’s from Loki, your heart drops. 

**_Csn we meet?_ ** It says, and then the little three dots appear beneath it for an eternity, before a second message comes.  **_Apologies, I meant to type “Can.”_ **

You smile, clueless god that doesn’t know how to text.  **_sure!! when do u want to_ **

**_Are you free right now?_ **

The abruptness in his texts is pretty flattering, if you do say so yourself. Loki’s never texted you first before, and this urgency with which he wants to see you is more than enough to pull you away from your homework and towards the glowing screen of your phone.

**_yes i am!! where r we meeting_ **

**_Your place_ **

You don’t ponder the lack of a question mark.

**_works for me :)_ **

Was that too weird, you wonder, as you go about doing things while you wait for Loki to show up. Finish your pudding, toss the empty cup and wrapper in the trash (you miss with the wrapper, so you have to pick it off the floor and try again), place your single spoon in the sink. Nerves start to prick at your stomach, stop it!

A knock on the door, he’s here! You push your glasses up the bridge of your nose and open the door.

Loki stands outside, a good few feet away from you, looking unusually disheveled, his hair askew, clothes slightly rumpled. Aside from your encounters on the stairwell, it’s been a few weeks since you’ve last talked to him. Tony Stark must be staring at his camera footage in relief, relief that the psychopath is leaving the mortal alone.

Thinking of the camera, you step out and raise your arm to give it a wave. It’s a habit at this point, except Loki reaches out and grabs your wrist. His fingers are cold as ice,  _ frigid, _ sending goosebumps up your arm. You stare at him, stunned.

“(Y/n), stop doing that!” he says, accent sharp and biting.

Something is definitely wrong.

“What happened?” You ask, putting your arm down, wondering if it would be appropriate to pull your arm out of his grip, not because it’s hurting you or because you don’t want him touching you (that sounds extremely wrong), but because it’s unsettling, the same kind of unease you felt when you first met him.

His face hardens, lips pressed into a thin line, crease between his eyebrows. Chills pinprick your skin as his grip loosens on your wrists and his fingers trail down, ghosting the border of your palm, the lines of your palm, your fingers. Instinctively, you grab his hand. 

Loki’s eyes widen, maybe this isn’t what he was trying to do, so you start to pull away, but he grips your hand even more tightly. Fingers interlaced with his. Despite the cold, you can feel your hand starting to get sweaty, nerves nerves nerves! You hope that he can’t feel it.

***

Your hand functions as an anchor, a tether, for Loki as he thinks. He keeps his eyes closed for a minute, trying to sort through his muddled thoughts, all jumbled together with his anger, because is it really the most preposterous idea that he can feel something other than the urge to be sadistic? Is it hard to believe that maybe he can like someone, and that they like him back? Manipulation is behind him, he’s not going to do things like that anymore!

He opens his eyes. You’re staring at him, the way you always do, but you’re worried. 

Good! You should be worried because he’s a big bad monster, on his way to devour you, kill you and leave you as an empty bag of flesh and bone, for your messed-up mother to weep tears over, because that is the person he definitely is.

“What I fail to understand,” he starts, and his voice doesn’t even _ shake,  _ that’s how fed up he is, “is how people consistently think that I’m going to  _ hurt _ them. As if I’m this monster of a person, and my one goal is to cause pain, but I am not that person!”

His voice rises in volume and he sees you flinch. You quickly hide it. “You’re not,” you say, and squeeze his hand, which he’s sure is meant to be reassuring, but it just keeps him angry, because how would he hurt you if you’re out doing things like this? Holding his hand? Listening to him? 

“I am not-” Loki pulls away from your grasp, he needs to pace around, so he does, across the small length of your apartment, “-not here to hurt anyone. I have a personality outside of my past.”

You stay silent from where you stand, just by the door. He waits for you to say something, but you don’t say anything.

“What are you doing on Thanksgiving?” He asks you, coming close to you again.

“Just staying here,” you say, and he feels a brief stab of guilt, you had  _ told _ him that you weren’t going home, even though you didn’t have to go to any classes, even though most people did for this break, another little Midgardian tradition.

“Tony Stark invited us for a dinner,” he says, hoping the words make more sense to you than to him.

Your face takes on a certain expression, disbelief? You must find this entire situation as made-up as he does. “What the hell,” you say, but not like it’s a question, like it’s a statement. “Us?”

“Us,” Loki confirms, and your eyes widen, and he realizes what the word implies, what Stark was implying when he gave his invitation. “He thinks-”

“-That we’re a  _ thing, _ ” you interrupt, like you’re unable to use the words _ in a relationship, _ or  _ dating, _ or maybe you’re just using Midgardian slang. “Oh my god.”

You lean against your door and laugh.

“Will you go?” He asks, suddenly unsure. 

You nod, still smiling, grinning. “Yeah, I’ll go with you. I’ll go. And, uh, I’ll bake a pie. Because that’s what good guests do, and you,” you gesture at him and his heart kicks up, “you’ll help me and we can show Tony Stark that we’re extremely good _ friends.” _

Good friends.

What is his life right now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello lovely readers. i had this entire chapter typed out three days ago and then after i finished writing it i went to sleep and had a dream that i logged onto ao3 and uploaded it. and then when i woke up i didn't realize that it was a dream and i thought that i had already uploaded the chapter but today when i sat down to start the next chapter this chapter was just sitting here in my word doc. also i don't know what i wrote in this chapter i just had to throw something down idk as i said before i wrote it before going to bed. also i just used the word chapter 327842 times i never want to type that word again SIKE chapter chapter chapter. anyways thank u guys for the support!! i love u all!! feel free 2 leave kudos and comments i read them all and try to reply to all!! hope u are all staying safe and healthy :)


	9. strawberry pie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you and loki prepare for the dinner

**_Happy Thanksgiving!_ **

You pause when you read the text, spoonful of cereal halfway to your mouth. The contact name above the message reads  _ Mom, _ the word weighted with all types of baggage, heavy and awkward and dreaded. You ought to change it.

Should you respond?

It would take seconds, and you could quickly get it over with and go about your day. You could bake your pie and spend time with Loki and not have to worry about not having replied, and things would be great! The holiday would carry on undisturbed.

But still. If you don’t respond, there’s the satisfaction in knowing that you’ve deprived your mom of the attention she never gives to you! That would be great, right? It could be like you reclaiming the power, or whatever meaningful saying people use to describe these situations.

What are you even doing?

Your mom probably spent two seconds typing her message out, and then completely forgot about you, pesky kids and their pesky needs, and you’re over here  _ agonizing _ over it! Can you not just let it go? Chill out, focus on the task at hand, which was coming up with extremely polite ways to insult Tony Stark?

No, you can’t let it go.

The cereal doesn’t seem so appealing anymore. You carry the bowl and spoon to the sink, pausing there for a minute to try to sort your thoughts out.

It takes more than a minute. You place your dishes in the sink. Stand in place, shove your hands into the pockets of your sweatshirt.

You should be worrying about what to wear tonight. There were two sweaters you had been eyeing yesterday. Which one should you wear, the mustard-yellow sweater, or the maroon one? It’s a difficult choice! 

But you aren’t worrying about that right now. You’re worrying about your mom, where her affections lie, if she has any to spare.

Could your mind just, like, shut the fuck up?

Eventually you make your way back to bed. You need that type of comfort right now. Nestled in the blankets and pillows and with a teddy bear that Saima bought you as a gag gift that you actually sleep with most nights, you feel somewhat okay.

Not okay, just stable. As if you’re not stuck over a stupid fucking text message, Happy Thanksgiving! What is your mom thankful for?

She’s thankful that her daughter lives in the far-off land of New York, far away enough that she doesn’t have to perform any regular motherly duties, aside from routing money to bank accounts and the obligatory phone call. She must be thankful to be off the hook.

You would cry, but crying is exhausting, and anyways, there’s a knock on the door.

Is it already time?

You kick off the covers, rub your eyes, sweep a hand over your nightstand for your glasses, You find them, slide them on as you make your way to the door. Loki won’t judge your pajama-pant-sweatshirt combination or lack of pre-baking preparation, will he?

You hope not. 

***

You’re still wearing pajamas.

Loki didn’t know what he was expecting. On Asgard you wouldn’t be caught  _ dead  _ wearing sleeping clothes during a meeting with a prince, the  _ scandal  _ that situation would bring! No, you would wear a day dress, at the very least, keep your hair braided and maybe wear pretty jewels in your ears, glittering on your neck. You would smell like rosewater and would wear boots, not sandals, because you’re too clumsy.

Shouldn’t you be wearing, maybe, jeans? A t-shirt? He’s not going to judge what you like to wear but this is so much more vulnerable than he was expecting. A small thrill of pride, you’re comfortable enough around him to stay in pajamas! How sweet of you, you’re so sweet!

You don’t seem to agree with the sentiment, since you’re mostly quiet when you lead him inside, head to your kitchen and start setting different things on the counter. Bowls and knives, your fancy machine that you mix things in.

Aggressively, like it’s done something to offend you, you open your fridge, pull out two cartons of strawberries, butter and eggs. From your cupboards you snatch, like someone else will take it if you don’t, sugar and cornstarch and flour.

When you go to grab the flour, your hand slips and the clip you use to keep the bag shut slides off. Flour spills all over your sweatshirt and you swear loudly, heavily.

Amidst the profanity, with your back turned to him, you grab the sides of your sweatshirt and go to lift it over your head. The shirt you’re wearing underneath rises with the sweatshirt and for a second he can see some of the bare skin of your back, exposing it to him, skin skin skin. Loki can’t help the way his mind wanders. Norns, you’re  _ deplorable. _

With your sweatshirt off, tossed over onto your sofa, your arms are bare and free, but you’re still carrying that heaviness in your movements. His, whatever it could be called,  _ want(?), _ has disappeared, swallowed under the weight of whatever is wrong with you.

Your mother!

How could he have forgotten about that? What can he say to help you?

Loki watches as you grab the strawberries and go over to the sink to wash them. You haven’t given him any instruction yet.

If it were him, and the being in question was Odin, he wouldn’t want to have any thorough, emotional discussion, wouldn’t even want to use his father’s name. It would be like kneading salt into the wound.

He would want it to be acknowledged, whatever injustice he’s faced at the hands of his father, but also it cannot stay about his father! It should be about him, him only, because otherwise it’s just carrying on with the pattern of his father first and other things later.

“Darling,” Loki says, shying away from the usual  _ dear  _ he uses with you, maybe to make you realize that you really are something special to him, in this moment, “we will be having fun tonight, yes?”

You turn from your spot at the sink and stare at him. “For sure,” you say, flash a weak smile, a half-hearted attempt to conceal your emotional unrest.

“I am happy that you will be with me. I-I am,” he racks his brain for the right words, what is he supposed to say,  _ “appreciative  _ of the time you spend with me.”

It was the right thing to say! Your shoulders sink and your face floods with relief and then joy, a real smile. You must have understood what he was trying to tell you, without explicitly saying it.

“Thanks, Loki,” you say, and the way you say his name makes his cheeks warm. It’s awful, completely awful, the way you treat him!

You turn off the sink and the looseness, clumsiness in your movements is back. You’re soft and sweet again. Carrying the carton of strawberries back to the counter, you start giving him instructions. 

“Can you cut these in quarters for me? I’ll start on the dough.”

Loki blinks and one of the knives, sitting next to the rest of your utensils, is resting comfortably in his palm. “Of course,” he says, realizing immediately after how he definitely should  _ not  _ have done that.

You gasp when you see how he summoned the knife. Your eyes are wide, with fear or panic or disgust? Poor mortal, you must be terrified. Why did he do that?

“That was cool as  _ fuck,” _ you say, still staring at his hand. Loki’s turn to gape.

“Sorry,” you add, when the silence stretches too long,

A smile finds its way over his face. “Nothing to apologize for, darling,” he says, pulling out the word again, just for fun. The embarrassment you feel from being called that, evident in the way you suddenly look away from him, ducking your head down, is worth everything.

***

Loki’s shirt is fully dusted with flour. For some reason you don’t own any aprons.

Your condition isn’t any different from him. On your t-shirt there’s a splotchy red stain from when you slipped while pouring the strawberry mixture into the pie crust. It doesn’t bother you, though, you hardly notice it. You don’t seem to notice the smudge of flour on one of the lenses of our glasses, either.

The pie is in the oven. Loki sits across from you at your little table, tracing his fingers over a dent in the wood. 

He contemplates for a moment, then reaches over and plucks the glasses right off your nose. His fingers brush against your face and it’s straight electricity, too much, but he shrugs it off, tries to ignore that it happened, it’s happening.

You blink at him, squinting. Loki rubs the glasses with the hem of his shirt, getting rid of the flour. When the lens is clean, he reaches forward again, sets your glasses back on your nose. His hands pause for a moment, near your ears, your hair. He’s acutely aware of everything. Would it be inappropriate if he took the time to count out each and every one of your eyelashes?

Absolutely not! He has the good sense to pull his hands away. You don’t say anything, just stare.

“I need your opinion on something,” you say after a long moment of silence.

You stand up, check the pie. There’s still time left, according to the oven timer. Then you dart into your room. Through the half-opened door, Loki catches a glimpse of rumpled blankets, pale blue bedsheets. A teddy bear, which he finds funny. Of _course_ you sleep with a teddy bear.

When you come back, there’s two sweaters on hangers in your hands, one maroon and the other bright yellow.

“Which one?” You ask, holding one up higher, than the other.

Loki considers the two, touched that you’re entrusting him with this decision.

The maroon would look nice on you. But it’s a shade of red. Blood-red eyes, Thor’s cape, Thor is going to be at this dinner! How could you just walk in there, being yourself, bound to charm all of the insufferable Avengers, wearing Thor’s color? You can’t do that!

“Yellow,” he says, and you smile and nod.

He’s positive that you are going to look like sunshine in that sweater.

***

When the pie is done, resting safely in a container on the counter, and Loki leaves, you get ready.

The maroon sweater goes back in the closet. You put on the yellow one, pair it with some black jeans, tucking it in the front. You slip on gold earrings, a necklace, the brown boots with a chunky heel that you adore but never have any event to wear them to. Fix your hair, spritz on some perfume, wear your contact lenses.

You check yourself out in the mirror, you look great! Pretty and cute and hopefully confident enough to roast the hell out of Tony Stark.

You can do this! You shrug on your coat, tuck your keys and phone (text message now being happily ignored) into the pockets, grab the pie container, and leave.

Something’s wrong with you, severely messed up. When Loki steps out, in another one of his nice shirts, with his hair framing his face in gentle waves, fuck, it’s like someone’s punched you in the stomach.

Loki notices and grins.

“Ready to go?” You ask, trying  _ so  _ hard to stop staring, averting your eyes to the ceiling camera instead.

“You look beautiful,” he replies.

Now you can’t help the staring! Your eyes meet his, and he’s smirking, daring you to respond, but you don’t fucking know what to say because every word in your mind has suddenly vanished. It occurs to you, that something is extremely different in this interaction. This isn’t, like, a friendly thing, this is something in a completely different range, way beyond you just saying hi to him on the stairwell, eating whatever you’ve baked with him.

It’s scary to think about.

Fuck it. You just won’t think about it, then. 

You cradle the container with one arm, making sure it’s secure, before dramatically offering him your free arm to link with his.

Loki looks amused, but links his arm with yours anyways, like you’re some medieval couple on your way to the castle, or whatever the hell people did back when they linked their arms together when they walked.

“Off we go, your majesty,” you joke, ignoring the last thing he said, because if you respond to it you might actually shatter into a million little pieces. “Is that what they called you on Asgard?”

He bristles, did you say something wrong. “No,” he says, “but you can call me whatever you’d like.”

There’s a darkness to his tone, he sounds borderline sinister. Maybe that’s just what happens whenever you call the guy you tried to become the ruler of earth royalty. Or maybe he’s trying to, like… you know.

“Okay, sweetie,” you say, his type of conversation is just not what you can handle right now, at all. 

Loki sighs and you laugh, tugging him along with you as you head to the stairwell. Arms stay linked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! here's a shorter chapter for today that took an unusually long time to write. i had a LOT of fun writing it though idk why haha i feel like my writing is slowly improving with each chapter, if i go back and read the first chapter it seems like i wrote it ages ago!! fanfiction is really going to make me a good writer LMAO. thank you, whoever invented fanfiction. um fun fact i made reader not own any aprons on purpose for something that we will see in later chapters! it will be very cute! and funny! aside from that we reached 1000 hits!!! thank you all, amazing people i love you all!! let me know what you thought of this chapter!! peace out!!!


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